Five free Firefox add-ons for the security conscious user

There are always ways to improve the already outstanding security in the Firefox browser with add-ons.

If you are a serious browser/user of the web, you know Mozilla Firefox is tops when it comes to remaining secure. But even Firefox is not perfect. There are always ways to improve the already outstanding security in the open source browser with add-ons. The Firefox add-on library is massive and includes nearly any additional feature you could want. Included in the library is an ever-growing number of security add-ons. For those that do not want to wade through the tide of installable features, I have brought together five of my favorite security add-ons for Firefox. With these five added features, you should find that Firefox will meet your highest security standards (within reason of course).

Each of these add-ons are free and can be found (and installed) from Firefox's add-ons manager.

Five apps

1. NoScript Security Suite

NoScript Security Suite is one of the best ways to prevent JavaScript, Java, Flash, Silverlight, and other executable content from running within non-trusted domains. With this add-on you can dictate the domains which are allowed to run executable content. This add-on goes a long way to prevent cross-site scripting attacks, cross-zone DNS rebinding, router hacking, and Clickjacking. Domains can be blocked permanently or on a temporary basis (Figure A).

Figure A

Quickly add sites to either white or black list from the options menu.

NoScript can whitelist or blacklist a domain for easy configuration and control. Once installed, you will also find a number of ads get caught up in the blocking – making your browsing faster and more secure. NoScript has plenty of options available, ranging from the simple to complex (Figure B).

Figure B

Plenty of options available in NoScript.

2. LastPass Password Manager

LastPass Password Manager is for anyone who needs to be able to keep the only kind of truly secure passwords – those you cannot remember. For that type of password, you need a password manager. But why bother installing yet another tool to have to open from your Dash, Start Menu, or Tiles? Instead, add LastPass Password Manager and gain access to that ever-burgeoning list of passwords. You do have to create an account with LastPass. During the setup of LastPass, you set up your account (make sure you use a strong password here – Figure C) and disable Firefox's insecure password manager.

Figure C

Setting up your account for LastPass.

During the setup of LastPass, you can even set up a profile which will be used when filling in forms (Figure D) – which is much more secure than having the browser retain your form information.

Figure D

Set up a profile which will be used when filling in forms.

3. HTTPS Everywhere

HTTPS Everywhere is a means to force your browser to use HTTPS with all sites that support secure HTTP. Some users don't realize the difference between HTTP and HTTPS; including this extension on your end-users browser will ensure you do not have to concern yourself with educating them on the difference or how to point their browsers to the secure version of a site. You will notice the included link does not direct to the Firefox Extension page, but to the www.eff.org page. This was due to a Firefox policy. Hopefully the extension will find its way back to the Extension page soon. Upon reboot (after installation), you will be prompted to opt into the SSL Observatory (Figure E).

Figure E

Opting into the SSL Observatory.

Once installed, you will find a menu to the right of the address bar, where you can gain quick access to the HTTPS Everywhere features. One of the more important features is the Enable/Disable Rules (Figure F).

Figure F

Enabling and disabling rules with HTTPS Everywhere.

You can enable/disable HTTPS Everywhere for all included sites in the Rules window.

4. AdBlock Plus

AdBlock Plus is one of the first add-ons you should include with Firefox. If you find advertising slows down your browsing, it's possible that reduction in speed is caused by advertising. Or, if you're trying to find that tool to install, but get confused by the Download buttons created by advertisements, it's time to take control. To curtail this behavior, install AdBlock Plus. With this add-on you can blacklist and whitelist specific advertisers. This, of course, is a tricky proposition, as many of the sites you visit are able to offer you free content thanks to the ads on the site. So take that into consideration when you begin blacklisting sites. It is also possible to block known malware domains (Figure G).

Figure G

Blocking malware and removing social networking buttons with Adblock Plus.

From within the add-on preferences, you can easily add filter subscriptions (Figure H).

Figure H

Just remember to keep the Allow some non-intrusive advertising box checked.

5. Disconnect

Disconnect prevents tracking by 2,000+ third-party sites. With this easy add-on you can stop ad trackers, social widgets, and most other tracking tools before they load. This will not only speed up your browsing, it will also effectively prevent those endless attempts at tracking everything you do on the web. As you use your "Disconnected" browser, you will get immediate feedback on what is trying to track you (Figure I).

Figure I

The disconnect tracking window.

After visiting a single page (clicked from within Facebook), Disconnect caught 20 attempts at tracking and sped up the page load by 6% (Figure J).

Figure J

Results of Disconnect blocking tracking elements.

Bottom line

If you're looking to gain an edge on security within your Firefox browser, add one or more of these add-ons and see if you're not happier with the level of gained security. Each of these offers a unique addition to the open source browser, extending the capabilities and security to a more acceptable level.

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November Office tip mailbag: Enter the em and en dash

Regardless of version, there are several easy ways to enter an em or en dash into your Word documents.

A lot of my mail these days is from readers who have upgraded and can't find their favorite features anymore. After Alan upgraded to Word 2007, he was unable to enter an em dash by typing two hyphens. The absence of familiar toolbars complicated Alan's situation; he couldn't find the AutoCorrect option that works this bit of magic. Fortunately, the feature's still around.

Before we look at methods for inserting dashes, let's discuss what they are and how you'll use them. Typographically, an em dash is the width of the font. For example, a 12-point font would produce a 12-point em dash. An en dash is half the width of an em dash. You'll (usually) use an en dash to denote a range: The instructions for inserting an em dash in Word 2007 are on pages 26 – 27. An em dash denotes an interruption—a change in direction—in a sentence. (Okay, that's a bit contrived, but it makes my point.) Now, let's look at methods for entering both dashes in Word.

Dashing

The easiest way to enter either dash is to let Word do it for you—that's where the AutoCorrect feature can help. Enter two hyphen characters between the two words you want to connect and Word will convert the hyphens into an em dash. To insert an en dash, insert a space character before and after the two hyphens. If this doesn't work, the AutoCorrect option is probably disabled. You can check its status as follows:

1. Click the File tab and choose Options. In Word 2007, click the Office button and click Word Options. In Word 2003, choose AutoCorrect Options from the Tools menu and skip to step 4.
2. In the left pane, choose Proofing.
3. In the AutoCorrect Options section, click the AutoCorrect Options button.
4. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
5. Check the Hyphens (--) with (—) option to enable it.
6. Click OK twice.

This is a default level change; the option will remain enabled until you uncheck it.

When you need two hyphens, you can temporarily override AutoCorrect by pressing [Ctrl]+Z after Word converts the two hyphens into a dash. Word will remove the dash, leaving the two hyphens.

If you choose to leave this option disabled, use one of the following methods to enter a dash:

• Press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+- to enter an em dash. You must use the minus sign (-) on the numeric keypad, not the hyphen character on the alphanumeric keypad. To enter an en dash, press [Ctrl]+- on the numeric keypad. 
• Hold down the [Alt] key and type 0151 on the numeric keypad to enter an em dash. Make sure to press NumLocks first. For an en dash, press 0150.
• Click the Insert tab, click Symbol in the Symbols group, and then click More Symbols. In Word 2003, choose Symbol from the Insert menu. Then, click the Special Characters tab, highlight the em dash or en dash item, and click Insert.

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Five more apps for screen capture in Windows

You can never have too many options for taking pictures of your desktop and windows.

Last month, I shared with my take on five effective tools for capturing your screen in Windows, and it has attracted quite a few comments with suggestions for different utilities to check out. You can never have too many options for something as seemingly pedestrian as taking pictures of your desktop and windows. For this next round up, here are my five picks sourced straight from the TechRepublic community.

Five Apps

1. PickPic

This one definitely caught my attention amongst the suggested apps to look at. In addition to effectively snapping in whatever I desired, I could also send files directly over FTP to a remote server, enable automatic file naming (which can include the time, date and computer name), and a plethora of functions which can easily be mapped to hotkeys. Heck, there's even a protractor tool, for measuring angles of objects on screen! A fresh and modern user interface is a nice added touch as well. PickPic is definitely made out to be a winner. PickPic is free for personal use, with a license fee required for commercial use, starting at $21.99 a copy with volume discounts.

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2. FullShot

Part of a good screen capture product is the ability to stay out of the way and be easy to access at all times. FullShot aims to accomplish this task, by integrating key options, like dialog and desktop capture, straight onto the title bars of any window. Need to snap a shot of an error message dialog? No need to precision aim your mouse over the message. Simply click the "W" button and your dialog box will be sent over to the editor just like that. The shortcut buttons don't show up on the resulting output either. FullShot is available for a 30-day trial period, with full usage licenses starting at $49.99.

3. FastStone

So everyone knows that you can capture content that is directly visible on-screen. But not everyone knows that tools like FastStone can fully capture documents and webpages, including off-screen content. In addition to regular image snagging capabilities, you can acquire an image of an entire scrolling file or online resource with a few simple button clicks. The process can be automatic or you can perform a custom scroll operation, so that only the content you scroll to will be copied out. FastStone is available for a 30-day trial period, then for $19.95 thereafter.

4. PrintKey-Pro

File this one under the oldie-but-goodie department. Based on its popular predecessor, PrintKey2000, PrintKey-Pro is a rather capable app. With regular, selection, and timer-delay capture also comes configurable hotkeys and an accessible system tray icon for good measure. You can also print directly to a printer after capture and send through email right from the main window too. PrintKey-Pro is available for a 30-day trial period, then for $19.95 thereafter.

5. Ashampoo Snap 6

And lastly, Ashampoo, a purveyor of fine software products, with generous free licensing for older versions of their commercial titles, offers the minimalistic Snap 6. You can access all capture functionality through a toolbar that tucks itself away at the top of your screen. You can capture video, scrolling pages of content in web browsers, enhanced image editing, and multi-shot. Snap 6 is available as trialware for 40-days, then $19.99 for use thereafter.

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Two PowerPoint 2013 user tips for working more efficiently

Improved smart guides and resume reading are two easy-to-use features in PowerPoint 2013.

PowerPoint 2013 has two new features that many users will love. The first lets you pick up where you left off in a presentation. (Word 2013 also has this feature.) The second displays guides, on the fly that make positioning objects easier. They first showed up in PowerPoint 2010, but they're even smarter in 2013. You've probably noticed both, but you might not be using them to your advantage!

Resume reading

Launching PowerPoint and then pulling up the slide where you last worked isn't a difficult task, but it can be tedious if your presentation has many slides. PowerPoint 2013's new Resume Reading feature eliminates this opening task by pointing to that slide for you. When you close a presentation, PowerPoint automatically bookmarks the current slide and points to that slide the next time you open the presentation. 

When you open a 2013 presentation file, you'll see a callout at the right margin. You have to click it to truly appreciate it though. Doing so will access the bookmarked slide so you can go right back to work where you left off. If you don't want to start with that slide, just ignore the callout. Because PowerPoint uses a bookmark, this feature also works when saving to SkyDrive.

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Also read: Add flexibility with PowerPoint 2013's improved Presenter View

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Smart guides and more

PowerPoint has three types of visual guidelines for positioning and spacing objects: gridlines, static guides, and smart guides. To view static guides, right-click the slide's background and choose Grid and Guides from the resulting menu. Then, choose Guides. Smart guides are similar to static guides, but they appear on the fly. You can add guides to a Slide Master so they'll appear on all inherited slides.

Before we discuss smart guides, let's take a short detour to review alignment without guides. To align objects without smart guides, you select them as a group and then click the Align option in the Arrange group on the contextual Format tab. Displaying gridlines is helpful when spacing the objects. To shift a shape or object a pixel, you can use the arrow keys to nudge the object a bit.

The dotted lines are gridlines (shown below). The dashed line through the horizontal and vertical centers are guide lines. These two are in their default positions. (I changed the guide color to black, so they're easier to distinguish from the gridlines.) After displaying them by clicking Guides in the Show group on the View menu, you can move them by dragging them. Or, you can add more by holding [Ctrl] while dragging a new guide from one of the originals.

Smart guides are the next generation. PowerPoint displays them as you work to help you align, position, and resize shapes and objects. They appear automatically when two or more shapes are in alignment with one another. This behavior kicks in regardless of the shapes or sizes of each object. You can see with a quick glance when objects align - no guesswork or squinty eyes! The smart guide in the first figure denotes that the two objects are centered vertically. The next figure shows both the vertical and horizontal smart guides that appear when you align the two objects both ways.

PowerPoint 2013 enhances smart guides a bit. When positioning three or more shapes, PowerPoint 2013 displays arrows when the spacing between those objects is equal. Specifically, when moving an object into place, PowerPoint measures the distance between the other nearby objects and displays smart guides when the distance between the moving object and its nearest object equals the distance between the non-moving objects.

Smart guides are new in PowerPoint 2010. The resume reading and improved smart guides (equidistant) are available in PowerPoint 2013.

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Five data recovery utilities

If your hard disk fails and you don't have a valid backup, you will have to resort to a data recovery tool. Brien Posey has five suggestions.

I've lost count of the number of times over the years that I have had friends, family, and even clients contact me because a hard disk failed and no backup of the data exists. In these types of situations the only option is often to use a data recovery utility to try to get back some of the data. This article discusses five such utilities.

Five Apps

1. VirtualLab

VirtualLab is a utility for recovering various types of data. As you would expect, the product features file level recovery and partition level recovery. What might not be expected however is that it also has support for Macintosh partitions. The software also has dedicated functions for recovering CD / DVD ROMs, deleted E-mail messages, and photos. There is even a RAID recovery function. Best of all, the interface is very clean and easy to use.

VirtualLab sells for $39.95, but a free trial version is available for download. The trial version scans for recoverable data, but the actual recovery is disabled.

2. File Scavenger Data Recovery Utility

File Scavenger Data Recovery Utility that is dedicated to file recovery. The utility itself is fairly simple. It scans the volume of your choosing, lets you select the file that you want to recover, and then that file is saved to a location of your choosing.

One thing that I really like about this utility is that it actively prevents recovered files from being saved to the volume where they previously resided. This is important, because writing to the volume decreases the chances of being able to recover other lost data. Although File Scavenger Data Recovery Utility is not as diverse as some of the other utilities that are available, it does one thing and does it well.

File Scavenger Data Recovery Utility sells for $49.95, but a free trial version is available for download. The trial version is limited to recovering files 64KB in size or smaller.

3. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery – Professional

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery – Professional is a basic data recovery utility. It has dedicated modes that allow for the recovery of drives (and file data), CDs and DVDs, photos, and E-mail messages. 

I particularly liked this utility's advanced options. It features the ability to clone a drive so that you don't risk further damaging your only copy of the data. There is also a feature that lets you create a disk image, which you can restore data from later on. A Drive Status function lets you view detailed health information for a disk.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery – Professional sells for $99.00, but a free trial download is available. The Save option is disabled in the free trial.

4. MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition

MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition is a free tool for recovering data from a number of different sources. The software provides undelete recovery, recovery of damaged or lost partitions, digital media recovery, and CD / DVD recovery.

The best thing about MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition might be the fact that you can purchase a boot disk. Having a boot disk makes it far easier to recover data from an unbootable, malware infected, or severely damaged system.

5. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition is a free tool for deleted file recovery, partition recovery, and complete system recovery. At first glance, it appears that the utility will only allow you to recover specific types of data such as pictures or E-mail messages. However, the interface does contain an Other option that you can use to recover files of any type.

The free version of this tool will allow for up to 2GB of data recovery. EaseUS also provides the option to purchase a Windows PE based boot disk for $59.95.

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Five mostly free mass mailing applications

Reaching large numbers of customers, clients, or members takes special tools. Here are five applications that can facilitate mass mailings.

Although I would never condone spamming, there are plenty of legal and ethical uses for mass mailing applications. Mass mailing applications are commonly used for opt-in advertising, communicating with group members (clubs, churches, etc.), or for newsletter or blog post distribution. This article lists five applications that can facilitate mass mailings.

Five Apps

1. Bigg Mass Mailer

Bigg Mass Mailer is a free tool for generating mass mailings. The best thing about this tool (aside from the price) is probably its simplicity. Bigg Mass Mailer has a very clean and straightforward interface that allows you to specify your mail server’s credentials, compose your message, import your mailing list, and click Send. This utility could not be any simpler to use.

2. e-Campaign

e-Campaign is a full featured mass E-mail tool that is a good fit for those who wish to create and monitor an E-mail marketing campaign. The software allows you to create a series of mailing jobs, and messages can be sent in HTML or plain text. More importantly, the tool has rich reporting features and offers tracking capabilities so that you know who has opened your message and who has unsubscribed.

e-Campaign sells for $149.95, but a free trial version is available for download.

3. MailList Controller Free

MailList Controller Free is a free tool for generating mass mailings. The initial setup process walks you through setting up your SMTP server and setting up your first mailing list, but you can create additional lists later on. It is worth noting however, that the free version only allows for a single list with up to 100 recipients. The professional edition allows for ten lists with up to 10,000 recipients, while the extreme edition is unlimited.

The software seems to have all of the basics covered. It allows you to import list members or add members manually. There is also a very rich interface for composing messages. You can also keep track of outgoing messages and previously sent messages.

4. GroupMail Free Edition

GroupMail Free Edition is a free tool for sending out bulk E-mail messages. This application has all of the basics covered, but it also has a few nice extras. For example, the software can use its own internal database, but it can also connect to an existing external database or pull recipients directly from your address book. There is also a scheduler feature, but to use it you have to upgrade to the paid version. My personal favorite feature is that even if you decide to use the internal database, you can create and modify database fields so that you can create rich, personalized messages.

5. Sendblaster Free Edition

Sendblaster Free Edition is a free tool for mass messaging. The tool is full featured and provides a very nice reporting and tracking engine. The software is also designed to work with Google Analytics so that you can track which of your recipients actually made a purchase after receiving your E-mail. Another nice thing about this application is that it includes a number of different message templates that you can use, although some of the templates are only available in the paid version.

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