PC Mechanic, New Article |
- Retro Friday: The Best Text Mode Apps
- How To Get IE To Dump All Cookies On Close
- Watch All The NCAA Tournament Games Via A Live Stream
| Retro Friday: The Best Text Mode Apps Posted: 18 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT A very comforting fact when it comes to text-based applications is that as long as the computer can connect to the internet, text apps will work no matter how slow the computer is. The only possible problem you could run into concerning the app itself is overloading the text buffer, and you have to load a ton of text for that to happen. The apps listed below concentrate on the regular everyday things people do online. Namely, web browsing, email, instant messaging and chat (IRC). AlpineType: Email Alpine is the successor to PINE and is probably the second most-used text based email there is. Supports POP3 and IMAP easily and is highly configurable. MuttType: Email This is as far as I’m aware the most-used text mode email client there is. It’s still actively supported and enjoys a dedicated fan base. There is very little Mutt cannot do (as evidenced by the fact there are many tools for it); you can read up on all it’s capable of on the Mutt Wiki. irssiType: Chat client (IRC) This is the best text based IRC client there is, and many say it’s the best IRC client period. Once you dive in, it is a joy to use and even has features you wouldn’t expect such as true split-screen. LynxType: Web browser Special note for Windows users: A native Windows installer is available here (at the very bottom of the page). In the Linux environment, Lynx is something you never have to download because you already have it. I’ve not known any modern Linux distribution that doesn’t load Lynx as a bundled application. Just about anyone who has worked at the prompt at all in Linux has used Lynx at least a handful of times. The Lynx browser probably has the most OS support ever. Aside from UNIX, it’s been ported to OS/2, Amiga, IBM OS/390 and many more. w3mType: Web browser If Lynx isn’t your thing for whatever reason, w3m is also quite good but even on its own home page states Lynx is "THE text-based browser" verbatim. CenterIMType: Instant Messaging CenterIM is to the best of my knowledge the only multi-protocol text-based instant messaging client that exists. It supports the IM protocols ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, Windows Live (MSN), XMPP (formerly Jabber) and a few others. This app like irssi does split-screen mode easily, which is a good feature. It also has somewhat recent development as the most recent version (4.22.10) was released November 2010, ensuring that the protocols will ‘talk’ correctly to the respective IM servers without issue. Are text mode apps easy to use?This depends on your point of view, but for many of you the answer to this question will be a flat-out no. Text-based apps do not follow any sort of rigid standard menu or keystroke structure you may be used to. You typically won’t see a File / Edit / View menu bar as you would in most Windows apps, and it’s probably true that Command+Q won’t close the app just as it would in just about any other OS X application. Functions in a text-based app are built to suit what it is. What that means in a nutshell is that it is rare that the commands for one app will be the same in another. For example, in Lynx, G means "go", as in to go to a specific URL (load a web page), but in Alpine, G means GOTO (go to X mail folder). I’m not saying this to dissuade you from trying text mode apps, but be aware that when in text mode, things are different. You will have to spend some time learning the ins and outs of how to do specific things. Is it worth it to learn how to do things in text mode? Whether it’s true full-screen text mode or windowed in a GUI, yes. Text-based apps use the least amount of bandwidth, least amount of memory and are all blisteringly fast. The only thing that can truly slow down a text-based app is a slow internet connection. The other advantages of text mode apps is that there are no ads, no malware and no spyware. In addition, for those of you that use shared computers, it’s an easy way to keep people from messing up your stuff (it would be highly unlikely for someone who doesn’t know text mode computing to mess up your bookmarks in Lynx). Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.       |
| How To Get IE To Dump All Cookies On Close Posted: 18 Mar 2011 05:37 AM PDT For the privacy-minded, one of the easiest ways to keep web companies from virtually following you around on the internet is to simply have the browser dump (as in delete) all cookies on close. All major browsers have the ability to this, but IE’s way is rather buried, so here’s how it’s done: 1. Internet OptionsThere are several ways to get here. In XP there’s an icon for it in the Control Panel. In the IE browser regardless of Windows version it’s Tools > Internet Options and has been that way ever since IE3 (possibly 2?) in the Windows environment. And yes, it is still available in the same place even in IE9. In IE9 specifically, the Tools menu can be accessed by clicking the cog icon at top right of the browser and getting to Internet Options directly from there: In the WinVista or Win7 environment, you can directly type in internet options from the Windows logo menu and get to it from there: 2. Advanced tab3. Security (header) / Empty Temporary Internet Files…You have to scroll down a bit in Advanced before you get to this point, but it’s there. The box you need to specifically check is Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed. The latter portion of the phrase is usually chopped off by the scrollbar as shown above. You’re done at this point. Close and restart the browser. Drawbacks of having a browser dump cookies on exitWhile it’s true you are preventing web companies from ‘perma-tracking’ you around the web by having cookies dumped on exit of the browser, this does not come without drawbacks. Drawback 1: Sessions are reset on every restart of the browser If you depend on the browser to keep you logged in to certain sites, the way it does this is by use of cookies. For example, if you login to a Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail account or otherwise, close and restart the browser and on revisit to mail you’re still logged in, that’s because of the cookie. If you have the browser dump all cookies on exit, just about every site will prompt you to re-login. Solution: Have the browser remember usernames/passwords for quick logins, or alternatively use a third-party secure login program such as LastPass. Drawback 2: Sites which you want to ‘remember’ settings won’t Aside from login session information, many sites use cookies to store preferences as well. For example, any time you go to a web site where you see a ‘Don’t show this again’ link and you click it, that is stored in a cookie as a preference setting for that site. When the browser is set to dump cookies on exit, all cookie-based preferences per site are reset each time you restart the browser. Solution: Try to use web services that store preferences based on account rather than cookie. Google for example does this. For just about any Google service (search, mail, etc.), any custom setting you use is stored in your Google Account rather than a cookie. What this means is that even if you have cookies dumped on close of the browser, a login to your Google Account will still ‘remember’ all your previous settings. Drawback 3: "Interconnected" logins may prompt you to re-login. A lot. This is something that may or may not be an issue depending on your point of view. Many sites these days allow you to login via your Facebook user credentials. When you do that, you browser may be writing to 2, 3 or more cookies at once (Facebook cookie, site-you’re-logging-into cookie, etc.). With the browser set to dump cookies on exit you may have to re-login often if you use your browser interconnected-login style. Solution: Same solution to drawback 1. Have the browser save usernames/passwords or use a secure third-party password utility. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
| Watch All The NCAA Tournament Games Via A Live Stream Posted: 18 Mar 2011 05:00 AM PDT If you are wanting to keep up with all the March Madness Tournament games or simply want to see a game which isn’t being televised in your region, just watch the live stream over the internet. Simply visit the NCAA’s March Madness On-Demand page and launch the viewer. Of course, use this responsibly. Don’t watch it from work or some other place where this would be frowned upon, but other than that… pick your game and enjoy. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
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