kerray - geek to live - shared items

Fragmentarium – Free 3D fractal software

2012-05-06T22:12:53Z

Make your own Mandelbulbs and boxes with this user-friendly generator:

http://syntopia.github.com/Fragmentarium/

Readlists Creates Ebooks from URLs [Webapps]

2012-05-22T14:00:00Z

The team behind Readability has released Readlists, a new webapp that can easily turn a set of articles into an Ebook and send it directly to Kindle, iPhone, iPad, or over email with just a few simple clicks.

Readlists is meant as a more permanent solution to gathering together articles and reading materials than a bookmarking service. You can use Readlist to piece together your favorite internet posts and save them in a handy Ebook format so they never disappear, but one of the coolest features is the ability to send out a public link to your friends and collaborators so they can add sources as well. The books Readlists creates are simple, but it filters out unnecessary content the same way Readability does. On top of viewing your own reading lists you can also check out other popular lists directly from the main page.

Readlists is a free webapp and you can use the service anonymously or with your Readability account. If you've been wanting to start a more permanent catalog of your favorite articles it seems like the easiest way to do it even if software like Calibre has offered a similar feature for a while.

Readlists | via The Verge

Make Your Email Hacker Proof

2012-04-17T23:59:54Z

It's only a matter of time until your email gets hacked. Don't believe me? Just read this harrowing cautionary tale.

When [my wife] came back to her desk, half an hour later, she couldn’t log into Gmail at all. By that time, I was up and looking at e‑mail, and we both quickly saw what the real problem was. In my inbox I found a message purporting to be from her, followed by a quickly proliferating stream of concerned responses from friends and acquaintances, all about the fact that she had been “mugged in Madrid.” The account had seemed sluggish earlier that morning because my wife had tried to use it at just the moment a hacker was taking it over and changing its settings—including the password, so that she couldn’t log in again.

…

The greatest practical fear for my wife and me was that, even if she eventually managed to retrieve her records, so much of our personal and financial data would be in someone else’s presumably hostile hands that we would spend our remaining years looking over our shoulders, wondering how and when something would be put to damaging use. At some point over the past six years, our [email] correspondence would certainly have included every number or code that was important to us – credit card numbers, bank-account information, medical info, and any other sensitive data you can imagine.

Now get everyone you know to read it, too. Please. It's for their own good.

Your email is the skeleton key to your online identity. When you lose control of your email to a hacker – not if, but when you lose control of your email to a hacker – the situation is dire. Email is a one stop shop for online identity theft. You should start thinking of security for your email as roughly equivalent to the sort of security you'd want on your bank account. It's exceedingly close to that in practice.

The good news, at least if you use GMail, is that you can make your email virtually hacker-proof today, provided you own a cell phone. The fancy geek technical term for this is two factor authentication, but that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that until you turn this on, your email is vulnerable. So let's get started. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Right. Freaking. Now.

Go to your Google Account Settings

Make sure you're logged in. Expand the little drop-down user info panel at the top right of most Google pages. From here, click "Account" to view your account settings.

On the account settings page, click "edit" next to 2-step verification and turn it on.

Have Your Cell Phone Ready

GMail will walk you through the next few steps. You just need a telephone that can receive SMS text messages. Enter the numeric code sent through the text message to proceed.

Now Log In With Your Password and a PIN

Now your password alone is no longer enough to access your email.

Once this is enabled, accessing your email always requires the password, and a code delivered via your cell phone. (You can check the "remember me for 30 days on this device" checkbox so you don't have to do this every time.) With this in place, even if they discover your super sekrit email password, would-be hackers can't do anything useful with it! To access your email, they'd need to somehow gain control of your cell phone, too. I can't see that happening unless you're in some sort of hostage situation, and at that point I think email security is the least of your problems.

What If I Lose My Cell Phone?

Your cell phone isn't the only way to get the secondary PIN you need to access your email. On the account page there are multiple ways to generate verification codes, including adding a secondary backup phone number, and downloading mobile applications that can generate verification codes without a text message (but that requires a smart phone, naturally).

This also includes the never-fails-always-works option: printing out the single-use backup verification codes on a piece of paper. Go do this now. Right now! And keep those backup codes with you at all times. Put them in your wallet, purse, man-purse, or whatever it is that travels with you most often when you get out of bed.

What About Apps That Access Email?

Applications or websites that access your email, and thus necessarily store your email address and password, are also affected. They have no idea that they now need to enter a PIN, too, so they'll all be broken. You'll need to generate app-specific passwords for your email. To do that, visit the accounts page.

Click on authorizing applications & sites, then enter a name for the application and click the Generate Password button.

Let me be clear about this, because it can be confusing: enter that specially generated password in the application, not your master email password.

This effectively creates a list of passwords specific to each application. So you can see the date each one was last used, and revoke each app's permission to touch your email individually as necessary without ever revealing your primary email password to any application, ever. See, I told you, there is a method to the apparent madness.

But I Don't Use Gmail

Either nag your email provider to provide two-factor authentication, or switch over. Email security is critically important these days, and switching is easy(ish). GMail has had fully secure connections for quite a while now, and once you add two-factor authentication to the mix, that's about as much online email safety as you can reasonably hope to achieve short of going back to snail mail.

Hey, This Sounds Like a Pain!

I know what you're thinking. Yes, this is a pain in the ass. I'll fully acknowledge that. But you know what's an even bigger pain in the ass? Having your entire online identity stolen and trashed by a hacker who happens to obtain your email password one day. Remember that article I exhorted you to read at the beginning? Oh, you didn't read it? Go freaking read it now!

Permit me to channel Jamie Zawinski one last time: "OMG, entering these email codes on every device I access email would be a lot of work! That sounds like a hassle!" Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

I've been living with this scheme for a few months now, and I've convinced my wife to as well. I won't lie to you; it hasn't all been wine and roses for us either. But it is inconvenient in the same way that bank vaults and door locks are. The upside is that once you enable this, your email becomes extremely secure, to the point that you can (and I regularly do) email yourself highly sensitive data like passwords and logins to other sites you visit so you can easily retrieve them later.

If you choose not to do this, well, at least you've educated yourself about the risks. And I hope you're extremely careful with your email password and change it regularly to something complex. You're making life all too easy for the hackers who make a fabulous living from stealing and permanently defacing online identities just like yours.

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NetSpeedMonitor Keeps Your Network Activity in the Taskbar, Shows You Bandwidth Reports On Demand [Windows Downloads]

2012-04-03T11:30:00Z

Windows: If you're worried that some application may be eating into your bandwidth in the background, or just want to keep closer tabs on the bandwidth your computer is using, NetSpeedMonitor is a handy systray utility that lives in your taskbar and shows you at any given time what your actie upload and download speeds are, which applications are using your network connection, what their endpoints are, and can run daily, weekly, monthly, or annual bandwidth reports whenever you need them. Plus, it's free.

There are plenty of tools that will tap your network connection so you can keep an eye on it, but NetSpeedMonitor doesn't require additional drivers, and it integrates perfectly with Windows, running quietly in the background while you do other things. Your up/down speeds are shown in the taskbar, and you can right-click on the app at any time to see which running programs are using your connection—useful for rooting out a rogue app or some malware that's sending data even when everything else is supposed to be closed down.

The app is also useful if you're worried about how much bandwdith you're using. Even though it can only report on one connection on one computer, if you do most of your browsing on that one system, it can give you an idea of how much data you're consuming every day, week, or month. NetSpeedMonitor isn't exactly new, but it is useful. Plus, it's completely free, and available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Server 2003, and Windows 7, and comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Used it before? Have an alternative? Let us know your preferred app in the comments below.

NetSpeedMonitor | FlorianGilles.com via Tekzilla Daily

PlayOnLinux Installs Windows Games and Programs on Linux Hassle-Free [Linux Downloads]

2012-03-30T14:30:00Z

Wine is a great way to run your favorite Windows programs on Linux, but if you don't want to mess with a program's settings to get it just right, free app PlayOnLinux has a bunch in its database that you can install with one click.

PlayOnLinux uses Wine to install these programs, so you aren't getting some half-assed emulation here—this is just a way to quickly and easily install your favorite apps from one simple menu. It has a ton of games, from Starcraft II to Portal to Mass Effect, plus other popular Windows apps like Microsoft Office. Essentially, it takes the technical, behind-the-scenes work and does it all for you, so you can get to using your apps. It'll even install the best version of Wine for each app, meaning you always get the best experience possible. Hit the link to check it out, and see the How-To Geek link for a more in-depth guide on what else it can do.

PlayOnLinux is a free download for Linux systems. It's available in the Ubuntu repositories, too, so you can just grab it right from the Ubuntu Software Center.

PlayOnLinux | via How-To Geek

Screenleap Offers One-Click Screen Sharing for Free, No Sign-Ups or Installs Required [Webapps]

2012-03-28T12:00:00Z

Just when you thought there were plenty of free web services that allow you to easily share your desktop with others, new webapp Screenleap simplifies screen sharing even further. Screenleap allows you to share your desktop with as many people as you choose, without signing up for an account, downloading and installing anything, and does it all for free.

In fact, the only software you'll need on your system to use Screenleap is the Java Runtime Environment, which most people already have. The first time you use Screenleap, you'll have to grant the service permission to run in your browser, but aside from that, the service is completely hassle and setup-free. Just visit the website, click to share your screen, and go. Once your screen is shared, you'll get a link to send to as many people as you want to see what you're working on. The URL is only active while your screen sharing session is live, and while you don't get advanced tools like annotations, zooming, or chat, once it's running, you do get a ridiculously simple way to share what you're working on with others.

Granted, there's no shortage of options for screen-sharing and collaboration. Google+ has it, and we've examined other options in the past, like TeamViewer, LogMeIn, Join.me, and GoToMyPC. Even if you prefer one of those other options, Screenleap may be worth keeping in the arsenal when you don't have the time or energy to fire up one of the others.

Screenleap | via The Next Web

Create a Hidden Encrypted Volume on Your Computer to Hide Sensitive Data When You're Forced to Decrypt Your Machine [Security]

2012-03-20T22:00:00Z

Using full-disk encryption (FDE) is a great first step if you want to protect your data, but sometimes it isn't enough. The U.S. Government can force you to decrypt your data, so if you truly want to stay protected you need to hide your sensitive files elsewhere and use your primary disk as a decoy. Security expert Brandon Gregg explains:

FDE drives still leave your data and personal information vulnerable in at least two scenarios: 1) You are forced to turn over your password (as in Judge Blackburn's District Court ruling), or 2) Someone has hacked into your live machine and remotely recording your keystrokes/data while you work. To address these issues, we are also going to put our personal/business files in an encrypted directory-but not using just any encryption scheme. Encryption with hidden volumes is the key to really protecting your information and rights. With a correctly implemented hidden volume on your encrypted hard drive, you don't have to worry when someone cracks (or coerces you into giving up) the password. When they use it to open the door, they will only see the closet.

Brandon suggests using a bad password for the "closet" (your encrypted hard drive—not the sensitive data), such as password. It'll get cracked easily, which will encourage the person looking at your data to believe that you're not smart enough to hide and encrypt your truly sensitive data elsewhere. Keeping that data in a secret volume is a very clever trick and requires hardly more work than encrypting your disk in the first place. If you're looking to keep your files secure, this is a great way to do it.

Three steps to properly protect your personal data | CSO Online via Quora

Console2 - A Better Windows Command Prompt

2011-06-08T05:13:59Z

I was working on my Mac today and while I maintain that the OS X finder is as effective as shooting your hands fill of Novocaine, I remain envious of the simplicity of their Terminal. Not much interesting has happened in the command prompt world in Windows since, well, ever. I actually blogged about text mode as a missed opportunity in 2004. That post is still valid today, I think. Text is fast. I spend lots of time there and I will race anyone with a mouse, any day.

I blogged about Console2 as a better prompt for CMD.exe in 2005. Here we are 6 years later and I hopped over there to see Console2 was still being developed. They were on build 122 then, and they are, magically and to their extreme credit, still around and on build 147. Epic.

Open Source projects may be done, but they are never dead.

I downloaded Console2 at http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/files/ and put it c:\dev\utils which is in my PATH.

Here's how I set it up for my default awesomeness.

Right-click in the main console and click Edit | Settings.
Under Console, set your default Startup Directory
Under Appearance|More, hide the menu, status bar and toolbar.
Under Appearance, set the font to Consolas 15. Not 14, not 16. Black background, Kermit green foreground color.
Set Window Transparency to a nice conservative 40 for both Active and Inactive. Not too in your face, but enough glassiness to say "I'm a subtle badass."
Under Behavior set "Copy on Select"
Under Hotkeys, change the New Tab 1 hotkey to Ctrl-T because that's what it should be. You'll have to click on the hotkey, then in the textbox, then type the hot-key you want AND press Assign for it to stick.
Under Hotkeys, change Copy Selection to Ctrl-C and Paste to Ctrl-V then rejoice and wonder why Windows doesn't work like this today. At this point, you may want to device if you want "Copy on Select" to happen automatically under Behavior. That'll save you the Control-C if you like.
Now, the subtlety. Under Tabs, you (if you are me) want two default tabs, one for CMD.EXE and one for PowerShell because you don't like your peas and carrots to touch on your plate.
- Set your Console|cmd.exe first tab to this shell if you want it to be a Visual Studio command prompt. Be aware of the PATH if you are not on x64 like I am.
  - %comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86
  - I also set my icon to the vscommand.ico custom awesome VS icon I created a while back.
- Then, make another Tab called PowerShell with this path:
  - %SystemRoot%\syswow64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
  - And I used the vspowershell.ico icon 'cause I'm into flair.

You'll have a nice "New Tab" option where you can make one of either shell. Note the general loveliness of this understated shell. I can open a new Tab with Ctrl-T (or lots) and use Ctrl-Tab to move between them. I took the screenshot with the background so you can see the transparency.

One final reason why Console2 rocks? It's freaking resizable in two directions, unlike the Windows CMD.exe console.

Console2 is a great little front-end for your existing shell, no matter what it is. Note that Console2 isn't a shell itself, it's just a face on whatever you are already using. Enjoy.

PdfMasher Turns PDFs into Ereader-Friendly HTML the Right Way [Video]

2011-07-12T19:00:00Z

Windows, Mac, and Linux: PDFs are great, and while many ereaders do support them they're just not optimized for viewing. There are also plenty of apps that convert PDF to HTML to help solve this problem, but that tends to destroy the great formatting you get with a PDF. Basically, you always have to sacrifice something. With PdfMasher, you don't.

PdfMasher lets you import a PDF and turn it into an HTML document that actually doesn't suck. When you're making the conversion you select and identify certain text blocks so it knows what's what. That way it won't just throw text anywhere, but treat it like the kind of text it is. You can also ignore irrelevant pages, link footnotes, and more. While PdfMasher is in early development and still has a ways to go, it's shaping up to be a really handy ebook conversion tool. If you want it now, it's available for free for Windows, Mac, and Linux (although donations are appreciated).

PDFMasher | via Ghacks

You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

Plug in a USB Cable The Right Way (The First Time, Every Time) by Looking at The Seam [Annoyances]

2012-02-24T20:00:00Z

Plugging in a USB cable is often an exercise in frustration, involving multiple jiggling and flipping attempts when really this should be a straightforward connection. Avoid this annoyance going forward: Look to the USB connector's seam.

We've mentioned before that the USB symbol on cables can tell you which way is up and thus help you plug it in the right way every time, but sometimes that symbol isn't there (e.g., on a flash drive).

In lieu of making your own marker on the cable or drive to note which way to plug it in, look for something that is on every USB connector: the seam. Lifehacker reader coren tipped us off to this. The seam should be facing down when you plug the USB cable or flash drive into a horizontal port.

Apartment Therapy confirms this and says that for vertically oriented ports, the seam should be facing left.

So, remember, seams down or left, and goodbye USB frustrations. Update: the actual orientation might not be down and left for your system, as some commenters have noted (e.g., if you have a cheap case). But, once you know how your system's USB ports are aligned with your USB cables' seams, then you know how to plug it in every time going forward.

Clever USB Connection Solutions and Tips | Apartment Therapy

Improve the Quality of Enlarged Images with These Photoshop Tips [Photoshop Tips]

2012-02-16T15:30:00Z

You can never enlarge and image without losing quality, but there are a few things you can do to keep it looking a bit less blurry. The How-To Geek shows us how.

The How-To Geek goes through three tips in Photoshop, but most should work in the GIMP too. Basically, you can do three things to keep enlarged photos sharp:

Enlarge them using the "Bicubic Smoother" anti-aliasing. If you're using GIMP, use "Cubic".
Change the color mode to "Lab Color" and use Photoshop's "Smart Sharpen" feature, or a slightly more manual sharpening method in the GIMP.
When enlarging typography, use the "Nearest Neighbor" setting, Gaussian Blur the entire thing, then use a Threshold adjustment layer to sharpen out the edges.

Of course, this won't be perfect, and it won't actually bring back the quality of the original, downsized image. However, it can take a very blurry image and make it passable, or make a slightly resized image look okay. Hit the link for the full how-to.

3 Simple Ways to Improve Low Resolution Images (and Typography) | How-To Geek

Files 2 Folder Creates New Folders, Pre-Populated with Your Selected Files [Windows Downloads]

2012-02-15T13:30:00Z

Windows: One feature I miss from my Mac when I move to my Windows PC is the ability to highlight a group of files, right-click them, and select "New Folder with Selection" to create a folder and automatically fill it with the items I've selected. Files 2 Folder is a free Windows shell extension that does just that—and it even asks you what you'd like to name the folder when it's completed.

Files 2 Folder is similar to previously mentioned Smart Folders, but works a bit better. First of all, it doesn't require you do anything different than you're used to—you can still right-click to create a new folder, the way you probably do already.

All you have to do is select the files you want in that folder, and the app handles the rest. Plus, unlike Smart Folders, it doesn't keep you from opening a file with an application by dragging and dropping the file onto the app. It fits into your workflow a bit easier and doesn't stop you from creating folders your usual way. FIles 2 Folder is free, and works wherever Windows does (It claims 64-bit Windows isn't supported, but I tested it on Windows 7 x64, and it worked just fine.)

Files 2 Folder | Skwire Empire via Into Windows

Top 10 Downloads That Enhance Windows' Built-In Tools [Video]

2012-02-11T16:00:00Z

Windows has a ton of great utilities, and while we can't live without some of them, there's a special place in our heart for programs that merely improve Windows, rather than adding new software. Here are our top 10 apps that take Windows' built-in tools and make them better.

10. MenuUninstaller

Unless you make regular trips through Add/Remove Programs uninstalling programs by the bunch, chances are you run into unwanted programs when you're browsing the Start Menu, or sifting through your Program Files. Instead of going all the way to Add/Remove programs to uninstall something, MenuUninstaller puts an Uninstall option right in your context menu. Just right-click on a shortcut or app, hit Uninstall, and it'll uninstall it for you. It usually works pretty well. However, if you want something a little more powerful, you can always go with another app uninstaller altogether—like Revo Uninstaller, which can uninstall every trace of a program just by clicking on its window.

9. MiniBin

If you like to keep a clean desktop—and who doesn't—that Recycle Bin icon might drive you mad, sitting in the corner. Even if it doesn't, you might not like how it handles deletions, and MiniBin can fix that. MiniBin moves your Recycle Bin to your system tray, and tweak how the Recycle Bin works. You can double-click on the system tray icon to empty the bin, and even get rid of the prompt or system progress display that comes with that operation, not to mention turn off the sounds. It even has a CPU optimization option for older computers.

8. XnView Shell Extension

If Windows Explorer's preview pane isn't your cup of tea, you can still get quick previews of images with something like the XnView Shell Extension. Not only will it show you a thumbnail of an image when you right-click on it in Windows Explorer, it'll also add context menu options for converting the image, setting it as your wallpaper, and more. If that clutters up your context menu a bit too much, you could also try FastPreview, which only adds the thumbnail feature.

7. OpenWith Enhanced

When Windows doesn't know how to open a certain file type, it does its best to offer you possible programs that will—but it can't recommend you anything beyond the programs you already have. OpenWith Enhanced adds a few extra features to Windows' Open With menu, like the ability to recommend other programs from the net. It'll also tell you which programs are more likely to open that file than others, so you can make a more informed decision, and even head to their download page right from the Open With menu. You can also clean up the "Open With" portion of the context menu for any file type, which is handy.

6. Jumplist Extender

Jumplists are still one of Windows 7's best underhyped features, and if you work them into your routine, they can be quite the productivity booster. However, you're pretty much stuck with whatever options the jumplists give you. Jumplist Extender lets you create new jumplist item for any program. You can tell the new item to make a keystroke, run a command from the command line, or even run an AutoHotkey command (so, basically, you can tell it to do anything). It makes jumplists even more useful, and lets you tweak them to fit how you use them in your workflow.

5. Process Manager

While Process Manager aims to be an easy way to kill programs from the right-click menu, it can do so much more than that. Process Manager adds more options to the system menu of any given application, letting you kill it, hide it, minimize it to the system tray, make it transparent, and more. You can even kill all y our running apps or hide all your running apps, if the boss is walking by and you need to get rid of all those Reddit tabs. It's just a few more ways to manage the mass of windows that build up during the day. Of course, if you need something a little beefier for managing tasks, you can always turn to a 3rd-party task manager, too.

4. QTTabBar (and Other Explorer Add-Ons)

Windows Explorer leaves a lot to be desired, and while you could always install a completely new file browser, there are also a few great Explorer add-ons out there that beef up your existing tools. QTTabBar is one of the best, adding tabs to the top of the window, in addition to other useful options like copying the path of a folder, custom keyboard shortcuts, and more. If that isn't your thing, you can try Better Explorer, which adds a ribbon-like interface to Explorer in an effort to emulate Windows 8's upcoming version of Explorer. And, if all you want is a few small tweaks, CustomExplorerToolbar adds and removes buttons from Windows Explorer's toolbar for you.

3. Bins

Mac OS X's "Stacks" feature is still one of our favorite features of the OS X dock, and Bins brings this functionality to Windows 7, letting you pin nearly anything to the taskbar. Pinning a bin means that clicking that icon opens up a "stack" of other icons, which is great for keeping your taskbar organized. It also lets you pin files and folders to your taskbar, which is a feature annoyingly missing from Windows. If you don't like Bins, 7stacks and StandaloneStack are both great alternatives for getting a stacks feature in Windows, and Taskbar Items Pinner will give you the pin-documents-to-the-taskbar feature.

2. Fences

If you use the desktop to hold files but need a bit more organization than it offers, Fences is for you. Fences lets you sort different types of icons into different boxes on your desktop, toggle visibility of all your icons, or even auto-detect which kinds of icons should go where. It's one of the best ways to design and create an organized desktop, and is one of the first installations I make on any Windows PC.

1. Teracopy

You may not realize it, but Windows' default method for copying files is pretty slow, not to mention kind of unreliable. It doesn't tell you what was successfully copied and what wasn't, it doesn't let you pause and resume transfers, and it doesn't optimize the process to make it go as fast as possible—all of which Teracopy does beautifully. It's the best way to transfer files on a Windows machine, and best of all, it plugs itself right into Windows Explorer. All you need to do is install it, and all future file copies will go through Teracopy's speedier, more advanced copying process. Install it, forget it, make your life simpler.

Bonus Item: ShellExView

After installing your favorite tweaks from this list, it's likely that your context menu has grown to a monstrous size. That's fine if you use a lot of the options within, but if you don't use a lot of the context menu's features, you can trim it down with something like ShellExView. We thought it irresponsible to not at least give it a mention considering we talk about so many context menu additions in this post, so here it is as a bonus tool. We also recommend checking out this guide to cleaning up your Windows context menu from our friends over at the How-To Geek, which details lots of ways—from ShellExView to tweaking the registry itself—to trim down the context menu to your liking.

As we said, great utilities abound on Windows, but there's something about a program that enhances Windows' existing features that's particularly enticing. Obviously, there are a ton of other great ones out there—from the somewhat niche like MediaTab to completely separate programs like 7-Zip. If you have a favorite Windows enhancer we didn't mention, be sure to share it with us in the comments.

Tool for finding out what information your apps are leaking

2012-02-09T19:43:26Z

mitmproxy, "an SSL-capable man-in-the-middle proxy," is a useful little free software utility that can sniff the traffic between your computer or mobile device and its servers and determine what data the apps you're running are leaking to the mothership.

mitmproxy is an SSL-capable man-in-the-middle HTTP proxy. It provides a console interface that allows traffic flows to be inspected and edited on the fly.
mitmdump is the command-line version of mitmproxy, with the same functionality but without the frills. Think tcpdump for HTTP.
* Intercept and modify HTTP traffic on the fly
* Save HTTP conversations for later replay and analysis
* Replay both HTTP clients and servers
* Make scripted changes to HTTP traffic using Python
* SSL interception certs generated on the fly

mitmproxy (via O'Reilly Radar)

The Best Key Remapper for Windows [Windows App Directory]

2012-02-07T18:30:00Z

If you wish your keyboard's keys were laid out just a tad bit differently, you can change it around with a keyboard remapper. Windows users have a few to choose from, but the easiest to use is certainly KeyTweak, which presents you with a full, visual keyboard layout and multiple methods for changing it.

KeyTweak

Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Download Page

Remap any key on the keyboard, including special media or web keys
Choose remapped keys from a list or press the desired key to remap using "Teach Mode"
Remove all remappings with a single button
Enable/Disable annoying keys
Warnings make sure the Ctrl+Alt+Delete shortcut is always available

KeyTweak makes remapping keys a cinch, whether you're an experienced user or a beginner. You can click on the key you want to change using a visual layout of your keyboard, then select the new function from a list, or use its "Teach Mode" to remap just by pressing the desired keys. Support for media keys is especially nice, and you can restore all the defaults with a single button click, in case something goes wrong. Simply put, KeyTweak is the easiest remapper out there.

KeyTweak doesn't remap keyboard shortcuts, like Alt+Tab or Ctrl+Alt+Delete, but that also isn't really its job—see something like AutoHotkey for that functionality. Its only real downside is that you have to install the program—you can't just run a portable version. Other than that, it's about as good as it gets.

If you don't need the Teach Mode that KeyTweak provides, MapKeyboard is a great alternative. It provides a visual keyboard layout, letting you click on keys and choose their new function via a dropdown. Its big advantage over KeyTweak is that it's available as a portable app, which means you don't need to install anything. Just extract the zip file anywhere you want and run the program.

SharpKeys is another great portable key tweaker, which doesn't include a visual layout—just a simple two column view that lets you remap your keys. It isn't quite as easy to use as KeyTweak or MapKeyboard, but it works great, and doesn't require any installation.

If you want to change the entire layout of your keyboard rather than just a few keys, you probably want something more like the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. You can create a new layout from scratch, base one on an existing popular layout, and otherwise change the entire keyboard. It's great for adding new language support to Windows, adding symbols to your keyboard, or trying something like the Dvorak layout for faster typing.

Know of an even better key remapper that we didn't mention? Let us know about it in the comments.

Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

Tiles Keeps Your Open Windows and Shortcuts Organized to Reduce Screen Clutter [Video]

2012-01-26T23:30:00Z

Windows: Tiles is a new application from Stardock, makers of our favorite desktop organizer, Fences, that keeps your open windows organized in a Metro-style thumbnail view in your sidebar, so you can focus on just the windows you need.

Tiles is a mix of Firefox's Tab Groups feature and Mac OS X's Spaces feature. You create different "pages" dedicated to certain projects or other categories, where you can drop open application windows and document shortcuts. Then, you can use the sidebar to manage your windows, move from one project to another in just a click or a swipe, and even get a thumbnail view of your open browser tabs. It also comes with a nice theme engine, built upon Stardock's WindowBlinds application, that lets you heavily customize it. Check out the video above to see it in action.

Tiles is available as a free download for Windows, though it's quite limited. The $9.99 pro version gets you features like custom pages, multi-monitor support, third-party skins, and taskbar features. You can also buy certain features separately for less—so if all you want is custom pages, you can pay $3.99 instead of the full $9.99 (which is really great). Hit the link to see more.

Stardock Tiles

UndoClose Reopens Windows You've Accidentally Closed [Video]

2012-01-24T23:30:00Z

Sometimes we get a little trigger happy with our window-closing mouse clicks. UndoClose keeps track of the windows you close and lets you reopen them with a keyboard shortcut.

Just like reopening old browser tabs with Ctrl+Shift+T—one of our favorite keyboard shortcuts here at Lifehacker—UndoClose lets you reopen accidentally closed windows with any shortcut you want. In fact, UndoClose lets you set two different keyboard shortcuts: one for opening closed windows, and one for opening closed folders from Windows Explorer. It's great to have the distinction if you use Windows Explorer a lot.

The program's only downside is that it can't reopen windows from a multi-window app; it can only reopen windows from programs you've closed completely. So, if you accidentally close an IM window from Pidgin, but still have your buddy list open, UndoClose can't reopen that IM window—it'll just focus your buddy list, because it can't distinguish between closed windows and closed apps. Still, it's pretty handy for most apps, especially Windows Explorer. Check out the video above to see a demonstration, or hit the link below to check it out.

UndoClose is a free download for Windows only.

UndoClose For Windows | AddictiveTips

Trick Windows Into Shutting Down Without Installing Updates [Annoyances]

2012-01-24T00:30:00Z

We've all been there: You go to shut down your machine, but you see that dreaded Windows Update icon that means your computer might stay powered on, installing updates for the next 20 minutes. If you want to shut it down immediately, you can trick it by going to the lock screen first.

To avoid installing updates when you shut down, all you need to do is lock your computer (which you can do by pressing Win+L). Then, from that screen, head down to the shut down button, where you'll see an option to "Install Updates and Shut Down" or just "Shut Down"—an option you don't get from the regular ol' Start menu. Choose "Shut Down" and you can wait to install those updates when you aren't in a rush. For a more permanent solution, of course, you can hack the registry, but this will do in a pinch.

Trick To Shutdown Windows By Skipping Windows Update Installation | Into Windows

Start Microsoft Office Programs Without the Splash Screen [Annoyances]

2012-01-20T15:30:00Z

If you're sick of staring at that Microsoft Word or Excel splash screen every time you start up the program, this little trick will keep it from popping up before the main window.

While the splash screen can be helpful in telling you that the program's actually started, Office has gotten fast enough where it doesn't matter quite as much, and the splash screen has just gotten annoying to look at. If you want to disable it, you can do so with a simple flag. This won't change anything about the program, just the shortcuts you choose to edit, so you aren't hacking the program in any irreversible fashion. To turn off the splash screen, create a new Word, Excel, or PowerPoint shortcut on your desktop by doing the following:

Right-click on the desktop and go to New > Shortcut

In the box, type one of the following, depending on which program you want the shortcut to activate (these commands are for Microsoft Office 2010):

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" /q
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\EXCEL.EXE" /e
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\POWERPOINT.EXE" /s

Hit Next, Enter a name for the shortcut (like "Microsoft Word 2010"), and hit Finish.
Repeat the process for the other two programs, if desired.

That's it! Now, when you use that shortcut, you should see that the splash screen is gone and that the main window just pops up once it's loaded. Note that this only works for when you're opening Office from these shortcuts—not when you open a .doc file from Explorer. To change that, you'll have to edit the Registry, which is a bit riskier, but will work system-wide. Hit the link to read more.

How To Disable Office 2010 Splash Screen | Into Windows

FindList Adds a History List to Firefox's Ctrl+F Dialog [Find On Page]

2012-01-17T00:30:00Z

Firefox: If you use Ctrl+F like a fiend, this simple extension will add a drop-down history list so you can access your most recent search terms on a given page.

If you're looking for something specific and using Firefox's "Find on this Page" feature repeatedly, it can get annoying to retype your search terms every time. After installing FindList (and checking the "Keep Entries" box in its settings), the Find box will contain a drop-down that shows you all your recent terms. It's pretty handy to have around if you use Ctrl+F a lot. Note that you need to hit enter after typing in your search terms to save them in the dropdown, though that's a pretty easy habit to get into.

FindList is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. We couldn't find a Chrome equivalent, but if you know of one, please let us know in the comments below.

FindList | Mozilla Add-Ons via AddictiveTips