Yet another screen shot tool (and recording): Extensoft Screen Capturer

Extensoft Screen Capturer
http://www.extensoft.com/?p=free_screen_capturer

Already in a crowded field, the Extensoft Screen Capturer (awkward name, but I'll bite..) is a pretty handy screen capture and recording tool.

Pretty much a beefed up Gadwin Printscreen with some added features; like recording your screen in WMV or AVI format (with audio!). An additional plus I have to mention is that the GUI to Screen Capturer is reminisce of SnagIt.

Like Gadwin PrintScreen, there are no annotation features available with Screen Capturer, but if you have a need to only perform screen grabs quickly, then Screen Capturer should fit your bill.

Capture modes:

• Full Screen
• Current Window
• Window
• Region

Output modes:

• Clipboard
• Image File
• Email
• Printer

Image File output types supported:

• BMP
• PNG
• JPG
• GIF
• TIFF

Video output type supported:

• AVI
• WMV
  

Screen Capturer is easy to use and is very configurable, i.e. you can set your favorite hotkey combination to trigger the capture. Also, when capturing to an animation, you can use your codec of choice (like XVid!).

Likes

• Modern interface
• Ease of use - similar to SnagIT
• Records Desktop
• Desktop recording abides by window, full-screen, active window, region rules
  

Dislikes

• No way to set the automated save image format...it always defaults as PNG
• Have to register for a free serial number (not a huge deal, but is it necessary?)
  

Want to check out some other screen capture tools: The Great Screen Capture Shootout

If you are a DBA and have to deal with Oracle on a day-to-day (or maybe week-to-week) basis, or maybe you are just plain into free education, then Geeks are Sexy has a deal for you!

GAS is offering a free 2 day course which can help you come to grips with the wildly popular database platform.

No matter if you are using Windows or Linux, you can still partake of this free offer.

List of Lessons

• Introduction (No additional materials complement this chapter)
• Installing Oracle and Building the Database
• Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Manager
• Configuring the Network Environment
• Managing the Oracle Instance
• Managing Database Storage Structures
• Administering Users and Security
• Managing Schema Objects
• Performing Backup and Recovery
• Monitoring and Tuning the Database
• Managing Oracle Software

Check out the GAS IT Resource Center and get your free course.

Link via GAS

Handy database query/browse tool for Excel: SQLExcel 1.3

SQLExcel 1.3
http://www.sqlexcel.net/

If you are a person who works with databases from day-to-day (as increasingly, I am...) then you probably at one time or another have used Microsoft Office and the MSQuery tool to build up your simple queries against those databases...

If you don't know - MSQuery allows you to view database tables, create joins, build queries and output the results back into Excel or other programs.

MSQuery can really help you build simple queries using the graphical interface, but it most definitely has its limitations - namely, you can't use the GUI to build advanced queries. For that reason, we are left with finding alternatives that are a little more robust.

In the payware arena, I've really come to love EMS's Query for Microsoft SQL Server (and its variants for MySQL, etc.) and Navicat, but those are platform-centric, and definitely not free.

Recently, I've come across a small Excel add-in called (appropriately enough) 'SQLExcel'. SQLExcel makes it much easier to connect to your ODBC compliant database and browse table structures to build up your queries. Note that this doesn't just mean SQL-styled databases, but those that fall under the ODBC compliance umbrella. This means (according to the website) you can connect to "SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, DB2, Firebird and any other ODBC compliant database."

Once you've installed SQLExcel, a new button appears in Excel (in your main toolbar if you have Excel 2003, or under 'Add-Ins' if you have 2007) called 'SQL'. Pressing this button presents you with the SQLExcel interface, which looks a little sparse at first, but don't worry - you just need to create a connection first.

Creating the connection is easy - just a few steps to define your database provider, server, database schema and credentials. After that, once you connect successfully, a list of tables appear on the right, and you can start building your queries!

This is a LOT nicer than Microsoft's offering, although in a pinch, MSQuery still can be handy. Me...? I think I'll be using SQLExcel exclusively.

What I really liked was how SQLExcel automatically created a join for obvious links in tables. For example, I had a two tables selected: UserConfig and UserStats (I was working with a BlackBerry Management database). There was an 'ID' field in UserConfig and a 'UserConfigID' field in UserStats. SQLExcel joined these automatically. Very handy - I can see this will be a timesaver!

I would love to see this or a new app as a variant as a stand-alone application so to easily export the data to a text file, csv, etc. without the aid of Excel (or more importantly I could use OpenOffice.org's Calc application).

Overall, I found that SQLExcel was very responsive and easy to use - a new version is on the way, so stay tuned. I didn't see a donate link, but I'm sure if you asked, Al would find a way for you to do so...

Comment: Getting rid of a computer? Wiping your drive once may be sufficient.

Saw this tidbit of news a little while back:

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/888

Wiping your drive only once with garbage data is likely to be sufficient enough security to ensure that prying eyes can't get to your deleted data.

If you have been in the tech/IT industry for any time, you know that you can easily recover files and folders that have been previously deleted from a system with various forensic tools. As long as that block on the hard disk hasn't been completely overwritten by newer data, you have a great chance of getting that data back in some legible format.

When deleting data, some security tools out there will overwrite the blocks occupied by that data numerous times to ensure that the chances of recovery is impossible. While this offers a nice big helping of warm fuzzies, it isn't really necessary!

With the aid of an electron microsope, researchers had determined that while yes, multiple writes and rewrites of random series of 0's and 1's makes it impossible to yield any recoverable data, they also found that a single wipe was sufficient to block any recovery of any substantial amount of meaningful information.

Security Focus is currently investigating this claim, however:

"(Editor's note: SecurityFocus is currently investigating the veracity of the research paper mentioned in this article. Peter Gutmann of the University of Auckland, an expert on secure deletion, has criticized the work in the epilogue to his paper on secure deletion.)"

My guess?

Either way, if you are wiping your disk at least once, it is better than not at all - - also, unless you are harboring some super-secret government data, the amount of effort and resources required to recover data from your drive by some random kid is probably not worth the effort.

Utilities you can use to wipe free space or data from your drive:

• Eraser
• Active @ Killdisk
• Darik's Boot and Nuke
• Shamwow - it can do it all, right? ;)
  

Keep track of your friends: Latitude/Google Maps 3.0.1

Google Maps 3.0.1
http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html

Social networking is everywhere: from LinkedIn to Facebook to Twitter to just about everything else in between, you can't escape it. Now Google is joining the fray (again) with the new 'Latitude' service in their Maps product.

Install Google Maps on your phone, enable Latitude (you need a Google account to do this). Your phone will update its location on the map, and if configured, will send updates to your friends' Google Maps as well.

So, if you want to easily meet up with friends or are just plain curious where they are at any time of day (is this a good thing?), you can find out how close by they are - maybe you can get together for an impromptu cup of joe/pint!

From Google's web site:

With Google Latitude, you can:

• See where your friends are and what they are up to
• Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a phone call
• Control what your location is and who gets to see it

Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, PC, or both.

Sharing your location with friends is easy - you can use your existing Google contacts or custom email address and you can also tweak what you share with them.

Additionally, you can set your location manually if you don't want to have your mobile track you

everywhere you go. It would be nice if Latitude allowed you to 'Publish your current location' if you had auto-updating turned off...but hey, maybe next version, eh?

One thing I did notice - I have a Verizon BlackBerry Storm and Google Maps is only using the cell-triangulated location services. As such, accuracy is around 1800-3800 meters. I'm not sure if this is Verizon still locking out a portion of the GPS hardware to BlackBerry maps and VZW Navigator, or if there is some additional coding that needs to be done - - either way, a more accurate GPS would be appreciated (My guess is Verizon). I suppose in cases like that, you could manually set your location if you are meeting up with friends.

No posts this week...well, maybe.

Some work craziness and stomach flu has completely derailed me this week. I will be back next week (possibly a post on Friday this week if I'm really lucky).

In the meantime, check out a few of my favorite blogs:

Digital Inspiration
Instant Fundas
Elite Freeware
Rarst.net