This issue brings you the first in a series of articles on how to network your PCs, a review of a password program that can save your hide, a review that can help you learn how to program games and two new websites that are Clickable certified! Also, one of our lucky readers has won a $10.00 Amazon Gift Certificate! CompuNotes - We now have forums on the website! See below! Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing ISSN: 1525-4534 March 3, 2002 Issue 176 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= To subscribe, send an e-mail to compunotes-subscribe@topica.com To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to compunotes-unsubscribe@topica.com or send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com with the following SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES-L +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CONTENTS 1=> This Week's Notes ... By Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@compunotes.com 2=> This Issue's Winner! Clickables: 3=> Reviews of HTML Help Center and amiright, Reviewed By: Patrick Grote, pgrote@compunotes.com Articles: 4=> How to Network Your Home PCs - Part One of Five, By Patrick Grote, pgrote@compunotes.com Reviews: 5=> Product: Game Programming Starter Kit 5.0 Reviewed By: Songmuh Jong, mailto:songmuh@yahoo.com 6=> Product: Corel WordPerfect Office 2002 Reviewed by: Don Hughes, mailto:dhtech1@sympatico.ca 7=> Product: Password Recovery Kit Reviewed by: Howard Carson, mailto:agtater@compunotes.com Stay Tuned: Next week we continue our home user how to on networking your computers so you can share files, share the internet connection or play games! Step by step in terms your can understand! We'll also look at the latest Eudora and a program to help you undelete your files. Jim Huddle will also have another installment of Network Monkey. --- Why not suggest CompuNotes to a friend, family member or co-worker? You can win $10,000 and they have a chance to win each week with great information! Please click: http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=864865 --- 1=> This Week's Notes, By Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@compunotes.com Welcome to another fantastic issue of CompuNotes. This week we've started our five part series on starting your own home network. Howard Carson reviews a great password recovery program and Songmuh Jong tells us about how we can all begin programming games. I use Google (http://www.google.com) for 99% of the searches I complete on the internet. I just don't agree with the pay per click mentality of most of the popular search engines such as AltaVista, Lycos, etc. They are basically overstuffed Yellow Pages. Google has stayed lean and mean, but more importantly they're fun. For instance the logos that appear on top of the Google page are created by their 23 year old assistant webmaster. How cool is that? You can read the full story here: http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/wire_story.html?uri= /dailynews/062/economy/Google_programmer_creates_Inte:.shtml. Speaking of search engines ... which ones do you use and what do you like about it? Send us your comments at feedback@compunotes.com. 2=> Winner! This week's winner: Beatrice Huntington! Would you like to win something just for subscribing? We give away a prize each and every week to one of our subscribers. Who knows, it could be you! You could win next week ... all you have to do is subscribe! 3=> Clickables - HTML Help Central and amiright, Reviewed By: Patrick Grote, pgrote@compunotes.com HTML Help Central ( http://messageboard.htmlhelpcentral.com/messageboard/index.php) One of the best traits about the internet is that it allows people to help others. The grand old days of the BBS were known for this and it's taken a while for the internet to catch up. Many of the best places to find help or to help others are on message boards. When the internet started there were a bunch of message boards, but they were hard to use, inconvenient to follow and really were just awful. Today on the internet there are a ton of very useful, very usable message board software programs. A tight community of people have begun to use these programs to their fullest potential and HTML Help Central is one of them. If you have ever decided to start your own homepage or help out with someone else's, you know that the commands you need to use are called HTML. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is a standard set of codes used to ensure your site can be seen by others on the internet. If you don't use HTML your site can't truly be interactive or offer people a place to surf. Once you have made the step into HTML you quickly realize there is so much to learn. It can seem intimidating, but if you can grasp the basics you can be off and running. But what happens when the basics no longer cover what you need? What if you're stuck trying to figure something out? What if you want to learn about a particular aspect of HTML? You can turn to HTML Help Central! HTML Help Central is a message board that is well organized, easy to use and most importantly has a community of people who want to help and learn. How many? Over 1500 in the last count. When you first connect with HTML Help Central you'll notice a very clean layout. As you quickly glance at the subject areas you'll notice that they range from regular HTML to DHTML. There's a place for regular chit chat and a section where you can have your website reviewed by others. The most useful section for those wanting to get up to speed quickly is the HTML/CSS section. It contains a ton of information. Navigating the message board is simple, but I suggest you register as a user on the system first. This unlocks a few features, the most important being the ability to post or leave your own messages. Other features that registered users can use include e-mail notification when your message is replied to and the ability to send private messages to another user of the message board. As a new user with a question you may want to search the existing messages for your answer. It's proper netiquette to do this, but more importantly it helps you find your answers quicker. Advertising on the site is nonexistent inside the message board. This allows for quick and efficient operation. The site is moderated, which means you can pretty much rely on the fact that each of the sections will stay on topic. The moderators participate in the sections, which just adds to the overall value of the board. If you're looking for HTML help or advice then HTML Help Central is the place to be! amiright (http://www.amiright.com) Admit it. You sing in the car alone. If you're like me you'll put the headphones on while working at the PC and wail away ... much to the dismay of your 6th grade daughter, loving wife and nosey neighbors. Yep, I don't have the Frank Sinatra or Elvis voice I wish I had. Heck, I don't even have a Jon Bon Jovi or John Mellenkamp voice. But do I have to add insult to injury by butchering the lyrics? Who can blame me though? Today's bands such a Limp Bizkit, Lit, Linkin Park and their ilk run things together so fast it's amazing I know it's "living with him must have damn near killed you" rather than "Little Women must have damn near killed you" in Nickelback's How You Remind me song. I've been singing Little Women since the song came out. No wonder my niece shuns me when I break out into song in the car ... There is a site that can bring all this to light. Set you on the straight and narrow in your quest for truth in lyrics. Unlike a typical lyrics database that lists them straight out, this site lists what most people hear and sing and then shows the correct lyric. The site is amiright and they have really nailed this whole wrong lyric singing affliction! amiright has a wonderfully wacky person as the webmaster. His own sense of humor is fantastic to see on the internet and doesn't smack of pretentious overtones. He gets down to it with the sites motto, "Making fun of music. One song at a time..." amiright is not just a reference source, but one of the most entertaining sites on the net. You can spend hours running through the list of misheard lyrics that people like you and me have submitted. It's wild to read what normal, everyday people think are being said in songs. And that right there is the beauty of the site. Unlike typical reference sites, the webmaster has really cultivated a community where people share what they think they hear and then follow-up with the actual lyrics. The misheard lyrics just don't come from a guy sitting in an apartment at night, but from the masses of people like you and I who have known the sting of being laughed at when we honestly thought it was "On the first day of Xmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pantry." There are also sections with song parodies, song name parodies and band name parodies. A whole section looks at real lyrics and comments on which ones are funny, make no sense at all or are insulting among other characteristics. Advertising on the site is moderate with a few banner ads. I'll warn you now ... don't go to amiright if you don't have a couple of hours to spend reading through the site. You may go for one lyric, but you'll end up staying for a few more plus a parody or two. Before you know it. 4=> How to Network Your Home PCs - Part One of Five, By Patrick Grote, pgrote@compunotes.com We debut a new section this week called Patrick's Primers. Patrick's Primers is a collection of articles that will help you get the most out of your PC and have fun. In the tradition of old computer magazines you'll walk through how to accomplish great things with your PC in terms you can understand. Whether you're tired of trying to share files by swapping floppies or burned CDs or you just want to share that nice, new blazingly fast internet connection, you may have thought about networking your home computers. If you're in the computer business this series of articles probably isn't for you as it is tailored to the majority of folks who own PCs and don't have the acronyms of A+, MCSE or CNE after their names. If you're one of the millions of people who don't support computers at work and want the real scoop on how to connect your home PCs then this series of articles is just what you're looking for. In the interest of presenting the information in chunks that are easily digested, we've broken it into five sections that will be presented in consecutive issues: 1. Networking Basics and Terms You Need to Know - Issue #176 2. The Hardware Needed - Issue #177 3. Configuring your PCs - Issue #178 4. Protecting your Network - Issue 179 5. Things you Can do with Your Network - Issue 179 This first article will help you understand what a network is and some of the terms you'll need to know to configure and use your network. First, we need to talk about what we mean by networking your home PCs. A network is a series of computers that are able to communicate with each other. When you dial into the internet or connect through a cable modem or DSL modem you're on a network. Your PC is connected to all the other PCs or computers on the network through the phone line or cable connection. When we talk about home networking we're talking about connecting your home PCs to each other. To connect to each other you'll need to determine a few things: 1. Why do you want to connect your computers? 2. How will they connect? 3. How will they talk to each other? WHY CONNECT? ------------ The most important decision you make about your home network is why are you connecting them? Are you looking to simply share the occasional Word document? Are you looking to edit video from another machine? Do you want to share your internet connection? This is important because you'll need different hardware to handle the different chores. HOW WILL THEY CONNECT --------------------- Networking hardware is categorized by speed. There are three different standard speeds you can choose from. Think of them as physical speed limits on the data streets between your PCs. The first speed is called 10mbps. MBPS is megabits per second and is a good indication of how much data can be transferred in one second. Look at MBPS as the speed your data can travel just like the speed a car can travel based on it's engine. The second speed is 100mpbs. These speeds are typically found in networks that require you to have a physical cable connection among the PCs. The third speed option can be found on wireless networks and it ranges between 2mbps and 11mbps. Wireless networks are just what they say ... no wires required. If you want to share documents, listen to music one another PC or share your internet connection, 10mpbs, also known as 10BaseT, is fast enough and is the best choice. It's going to be the cheapest and most reliable solution. If you need to share a heavy amount of data, such as for video editing, music editing or heavy file copying, then you should look to 100mpbs. The technology behind 100mbps, also knows as 100BaseT, is the same as 10mbps, but the components are different. Regardless of whether you go with 10BaseT or 100BaseT you'll need to purchase a device called a hub or a switch. We'll talk about the differences between them in the next article. It's important to understand how 10BaseT and 100BaseT networks function. Each PC in a 10baseT or 100BaseT network needs to have a cable (patch cable) connecting it to a hub or switch. The hub or switch acts as a transfer point for information. It takes the information from your PC and sends it along to the other PCs on your network. Think of it as a hub for an airline. People (your data) fly into the hub from all the smaller cities (your PC) and fly out the gates to the destination cities (the other PCs on the network). What you end up with is a small box that typically has either 4, 8 or 16 connections called ports. You plug your network cable from the PC into a port. It's similar to connecting a phone (PC) to a phone jack (port). In fact, the networking cables are slightly larger than phone cables and have almost the same connectors. If your needs fall into the following areas you may want to look at wireless: 1. You cannot physically install a cable to each PC you'd like to network. 2. It's important that you can access the network from anywhere in your house. 3. You don't feel comfortable installing hardware in your PC. HOW WILL THEY TALK ------------------ Computers speak various languages called protocols. Just as you and I speak English to one another, your PC at home can talk TCP/IP or NetBEUI (net-booey) to other PCs. It's important to understand these two primary protocols and what they're used for. TCP/IP is the backbone of the internet. When you dial into the internet or connect through your cable modem or DSL modem your PC is talking TCP/IP to the rest of the internet. If your PC wasn't speaking TCP/IP you couldn't participate on the internet. NetBEUI is used for local networks, local connections. It can't be used across wide areas or multiple networks like TCP/IP can, so you'll find PCs talking NetBEUI to each other on local networks. For our purposes we'll be focusing on using TCP/IP as it's the standard protocol used today. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW NOW ------------------------ If this article has been anything of a success you should know the following things: 1. What you're going to use your network for. 2. The speeds available for your network. 3. The different ways of connecting your PCs. 4. What language/protocol your PC will use and why. Here are the terms we discussed and a great site for hard core definitions: MBPS (http://www.pcwebopedia.com/TERM/M/MBps_megabytes.html) 10BaseT (http://www.pcwebopedia.com/TERM/1/10BaseT.html) 100BaseT (http://www.pcwebopedia.com/TERM/1/100Base_T.html) Wireless (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/fixed_wireless.html) Hub (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/h/hub.html) Switch (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/switching_hub.html) Cable (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/patch_cord.html) Protocol (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/protocol.html) TCP/IP (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/TCP_IP.html) NetBEUI (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/Netbeui.html) In our next article we're going to discuss the hardware you need to network two PCs or more as well as making the decision on whether to use cables or go wireless. 5=> Product: Game Programming Starter Kit 5.0 Reviewed By: Songmuh Jong, mailto:songmuh@yahoo.com Requires: Pentium 133 or later, Windows 9x, 2000, ME or XP, 24MB RAM (128MB for XP), 550MB free HDD space, 8MB SVGA with 800x600 minimum, sound card, Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat reader MSRP: US$49.95 Everyone likes to play games. It is even more exciting if you can program the games. According to the publisher of Game Programming Starter Kit, "[the] powerful and comprehensive kit has everything necessary to learn to program games and publish them royalty-free. It provides you with expert tools and guidance." That's not an overstatement. The current version of the Starter Kit consists of Microsoft Visual C++ Introductory Edition 6, Microsoft DirectX 8 SDK, 3D GameStudio Standard Edition with an upgrade voucher ($30 less) comes with DirectX 7a SDK, e-book "Tricks of Windows Game Programming Gurus" by Andre LaMothe comes with two other online books Direct3D Primer by Mathew Ellis, General 3D Graphics by Sergei Savchenko, Printed Book "Game Design: Secrets of the Sages", 3rd Ed., various articles on the CD from many authors. As usual, Microsoft SDK comes with a huge collection of documents that lead you from one question to another. The printed book provides some introduction to game design principles, but is mostly a collection of conversations with experts in the field. The 3D Game Studio comes with a guided tour. Leave the printed book and SDK documentation alone and start reading the e-book (it's by the same author who wrote Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days). If you are shaky with C++, the e-book has a primer. If you are not familiar with the Visual C++ IDE, the first compilation could be a nightmare. I first tried the DirectX SDK in my existing Visual C++ environment. The first example compiled correctly, but the linker complained about missing info. After adding the library files to the project property LINK setting, the compilation worked. To make sure the kit really works for people who do not have existing Visual C++, I reinstalled Windows 98 on a clean hard drive then installed C++Visual Introductory Edition, followed by the DirectX SDK, and C++finally the e-book. I found that I had to reboot between installation in order to tie DirectX SDK to the Visual C++ environment. It looks like the DirectX libraries must be at the beginning of the search order among the Visual C++ libraries in order for the sample codes to compile properly. This is actually mentioned in the e-book. Note that to distribute the game(s) you create, you'll need a real Visual C++ compiler (Professional or Enterprise Edition) because the Introductory Edition does not allow you to distribute the final executables. Game programming is not just coding the sequence or action of the game. Graphics and music creation can take up most of the time and effort, and the e-book covers math, physics, AI, graphics, sound, music, GUI, data structures, and so forth. The printed book "Game Design: Secrets of the Sages" contains a heavy discussion of what lies ahead for 3D game programmers. You get a broad perspective of the computer game programming. Importantly, the third CD comes with some files for the printed books, including a sample game and its source code, an audio development agreement forms and a game design document template. You need Microsoft Word to open the documents. The 3D GameStudio comes with a tutorial. You need to start the level or World Editor (WED) in order to follow the tutorial. The help mode can be annoying, especially if you have a small (15") monitor. Once you click Build, the help window is bigger than the screen and you cannot proceed to the next step. Turning the help mode off will get you to the real windows faster. The default resolution for an opened file is much bigger than the display area of a 15" monitor. You need to reduce the application window in order to see all the windows in the workspace. The moral is: get a big monitor if you want to do game programming. The workspace design of 3D GameStudio is very straightforward. The Build and Run buttons are prominently on top of the window. The Studio comes with a scripting language (WDL). The Publish command creates a subdirectory with all the files needed for distribution, including the game engine. This is amazing. You can essentially create a simple game within the 3D GameStudio. The question is then, why do we need Visual C++ if 3D GameStudio can do the job much easier? I think the answer has to do with control. 3D GameStudio is a high-level editor. Your control of the game is limited to the scripting language. Games created with Visual C++ and DirectX will be much more flexible, although they take longer to develop. Visual C++ gives me a sense of understanding and confidence that cannot be matched by a high-level editor. Still, it is more fun and more productive to use a high-level design tool such as 3D GameStudio. Macmillan Software has done a great job in assembling a Starter Kit for new Windows game programmers as well as for experienced programmers who want to explore the game-programming field. The DirectX SDK also comes with examples for Visual Basic programming. It is well worth the money considering the tools and information supplied with the kit. I agree with the publisher - this is a kit that has everything you need to start game programming in Windows. Macmillan Software, Pearson Technology Group Game Programming Kit Starter Kit 5.0 Product Web sites: http://www.macmillansoftware.com/detail_software.cfm?item=1575955555 (Starter Kit) http://www.conitec.net/a4info.htm (3D Game Studio) 5=> Product: Corel WordPerfect Office 2002 Reviewed by: Don Hughes, mailto:dhtech1@sympatico.ca Requires: Windows 98/NT4 (with SP6 or higher)/Me/2000/XP, 64 MB RAM, 425 MB hard disk space, CD-ROM drive, VGA monitor, mouse or tablet, 16-bit sound card, speaker MSRP: US$489.00 (Professional Edition) US$389.00 (Standard Edition) I will admit to being a long time WordPerfect fan and user since the early MS DOS days. Even back then, WordPerfect gave users plenty of document formatting power, and the new WordPerfect Office 2002 suite has taken the ability to process words and data to a new level. In the war of office suites WordPerfect Office 2002 is a heavy hitter and a wordsmithing powerhouse. WordPerfect Office is available in two versions: Standard and Professional. I tested the Professional version for this review. Professional is supplied with Dragon Naturally Speaking, a top quality voice recognition system. In addition you'll find the following inside the WordPerfect Office Professional 2002 box: WordPerfect 10 word processor, Quattro Pro 10 spreadsheet, Corel Presentations 10 slide show creation, Corel CENTRAL 10 personal information manager, Paradox 10 Database, Language Module language-specific writing tools, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications scripting tools, Headset for use with Dragon (more on this feature later), Registration card, printed manual, and upgrade information sheet (upgrade version only). The VXI Parrot voice recognition headset requires two AA batteries. Corel gets high marks for including a large 430-page user's guide with WordPerfect Office 2002. In recent years, the majority of software manufacturers have downsized manuals to almost nothing, leaving users to read the online help files or seek out third party instruction books. There simply is not enough space in a review to list all the features, and functions of this multifaceted program, so here's an abbreviated overview: - Outstanding compatibility - Extensive import/export filters - Exchange files with colleagues and clients using Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint - Publish to PDF for sharing documents across applications and platforms - Support for open standard technologies - Excellent compatibility with HTML, XML and SGML - The Pocket Oxford Dictionary to look up word definitions and phonetic spellings - Corel Application Recovery Manager to help recover from most application failures without losing your work - Corel CENTRAL Mail for sending and receiving e-mail, e-mail account management - Enhanced charting capabilities with a re-engineered charting tool in Quattro Pro 10 - MP3 and WMA sound support - Macromedia Flash support: publish your slide shows as Macromedia Flash files for the Web - Paradox 10 for simplified database management and data sharing with any ODBC database - Dragon Naturally Speaking for creating and formatting documents and spreadsheets - Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications - PerfectScript for creating and editing macros to automate repetitive tasks - PerfectExpert, a guided Help feature that walks you through many common tasks - Learning programs which integrate the convenience of flexible, interactive software instruction through Web-based training At no time is a WordPerfect Office 2002 user left to go it alone. You can seek help and information from a worldwide base of WordPerfect users at the Office Community web site. Corel software engineers added Microsoft word file exchange so users can read, edit and save documents in Word format. Corel supplies Dragon Naturally Speaking on one of the bundled CDs and after installation the end user must train the program to recognize his or her voice inflections and program commands. Dragon Naturally Speaking comes with more than 160,000 active words in the vocabulary, and quickly adds new words as you speak. Dragon Naturally Speaking claims 95% voice recognition accuracy once the user has completed training. The supplied headset is adjustable for any user and fits comfortably. However, just be sure to "End" dictation when answering the phone, or your document will have a few strange sentences added from the phone conversation. The new version of Dragon Naturally Speaking does a much better job of voice recognition and has excellent possibilities for people with disabilities and the prevention of Carpal tunnel syndrome in office workers. Microsoft Office followed Corel's lead and now has added voice recognition to MS Office XP Pro. Both voice recognition systems have one unfortunate thing in common however: neither Microsoft nor Corel supply a sheet of voice commands. Users have to scrape together commands from help files within programs or on web sites. One of the new features I am absolutely in love with is the new, built in Oxford Dictionary. A user simply clicks on a word, then either presses Alt-CTRL-F1, or the right mouse button, or select Dictionary from the Tools menu and the word definition appears in a Window at the bottom of the screen. The addition of this built-in dictionary is a "boon" for writers, office workers, university, college, and high school students. <--boon-->noun 1. a thing that is helpful or beneficial. 2. archaic, a favor or request--ORIGIN Old Norse.> Yes, I could have simplified things and written "helpful", but I think for prospective new users this explanation gives a better idea of the word power Corel has packed into WordPerfect 2002. Corel WordPerfect 2002 users have access to a Wordsmith's power tools with the click of a mouse; the Oxford dictionary, spell checking, and Grammatik's grammar checking, and the ability to publish to HTML and PDF formats. The Quattro Pro program imports many of the popular spreadsheet formats and all data sheets created by Lotus and Excel. Quattro Pro can translate almost all Microsoft Excel formats, print options and formulas, although some information may not be imported. During my testing I was able to load and use Excel price lists from suppliers and other spreadsheets previously created using Excel. During installation of WordPerfect Office 2002, Corel Desktop Application Director (DAD) is added to the system in the status bar. Using DAD, you can easily access WordPerfect, Quattro, Paradox, Corel Central, Corel Presentations and DAD setup properties. Paradox is a very powerful, easy-to-use, relational database which can be used to create databases to suit individual needs. The customizable database can range from a simple telephone or mailing list to more complex inventory control complete with product photographs. Paradox packs plenty of muscle for users to create custom database programs, and the help files are detailed and well written. Corel Central is a suite of handy applications for users to set-up E- mail, Day Planner, Card File, Memo, Alarm, and an Address book. Using Corel Presentation users can create slide shows, flyers, signs, banners, organization charts, text and data charts, and animated GIF files. The manual included with WordPerfect Office 2002 contains detailed explanations for users of Corel Central and Corel Presentations. Corel WordPerfect Office 2002 Professional contains an impressive set of tools and applications for novice or professional computer users. Whether the tasks are creating a database, a word processing document, a simple or complex spreadsheet, slide show, mailing lists, inventory control or making a sign for the weekend yard sale, Corel WordPerfect Office 2002 Professional has all the features to accommodate the needs of any business, student, or home office users. Corel Corporation Corel WordPerfect Office 2002 Product Web site: http://www.wordperfect.com 6=> Product: Password Recovery Kit Reviewed by: Howard Carson, mailto:agtater@compunotes.com Requires: Windows 95/98/98SE/Me/NT4.x/2000/XP, 16MB RAM, Pentium II or faster MSRP: US$395 (complete Passware kit) What's NOT fun is creating a document which is password protected and then promptly losing or forgetting the password. Dumb and dumber, no doubt about it. And since far too many of us believe our documents, spreadsheets, databases files and so on are being read by prying or otherwise unwanted intruders, co-workers and outright strangers, what's a body to do when the password is gone and the document refuses to open? Password Recovery Kit is one solution. Since 1998, Passware has been supplying Help Desk personnel, IT professionals, and business users with security tools designed to recover lost passwords. The main product, Password Recovery Kit, works with all versions of MS Office, including the latest Office XP release of Access, Excel, Word, Outlook, and VBA. The software also recovers passwords from Quicken, QuickBooks, WordPerfect, WinZip, Windows 2000/XP/NT, 1-2-3, ACT!, Paradox, Organizer, Adobe Acrobat, WinZip and many other popular business software programs (the current total is 26). Password Recovery Kit can recover passwords for opens, write reservations, workbooks and worksheets, templates and documents, Personal Folders files, form designs, databases, and access user accounts. The SureZip recovery module decrypts most WinZip archives in less than an hour. The Windows XP/2000/NT module lets a user reset Windows security if the Administrator password, secure boot password, or key disk are lost. The program will help you create Windows NT Key boot disks which can be used to unlock your system. Installing Password Recovery Kit is extremely simple and takes less than a minute. The software uses a combination of algorithms and dictionary look-ups to do its work. Using Password Recovery Kit (PRK) is even simpler than installing it. Simply run the program and choose the unlock key from among the file types that the program processes. Each unlock key corresponds to a specific file format, i.e.: the Word key is used on Microsoft Word documents, the Excel key is used on Microsoft Excel documents, and so on. Launch the Word key, set the password recovery options (or use the defaults), load a Word doc. That's it. PRK starts working automatically. The software finds a password by literally trying millions of passwords per minute. The Brute-force attack method is the slowest approach and can try all passwords up to 7 characters in length. The Xieve attack method is faster and capable of recovering passwords of up to 9 characters. The Dictionary attack method (which uses only letter combinations) is fastest and there's no limitation on password length. In my tests I found that the fastest results using any of the methods came from having at least a vague idea of what the lost password might have been. There's no sane reason to attempt a recovery using letters only if the file owner insists that the password was all numbers. Save yourself some time and define the recovery parameters as narrowly as possible. The password "helena" (on a Word 2000 doc) required exactly one-tenth of a second to recover - amazingly fast. However, the password "helena1" required several hours to recover. Ditto for "1543267" versus "154a267". But if the document is important and contains information which is not available anywhere else, it's worth the wait. If you allow staff to place password protection on documents created for internal use, create and insist on a policy of either plain language passwords or numeric passwords. Allowing staff to create any old random, overly complex or overlong password may result in a situation which stymies even Password Recovery Kit. Keep it simple. Documents for use outside the company need more powerful schemes, including digital signatures combined with password locks and encryption. Cons: This isn't really a Con but you need to know that complex or overlong passwords may require a couple of days for Password Recovery Kit to discover. That's just the nature of brute-force recoveries. Note that Word 2002/2000/97 and Excel 2002/2000/97 use an industrial strength RC4 encryption algorithm that makes instant password calculation impossible. The MS Office key (Word, Access, Excel, etc.) will not recover passwords for office docs which have been encrypted by 3rd-party software.. Pros: Password Recovery Kit speed is limited only by the speed of your CPU. If you are in an environment which generates confidential information (spec sheets, research, analysis, private reports, designs, reviews, etc.) you will eventually need to lock and protect documents. That activity goes hand-in-hand with lost passwords. Password Recovery Kit will eliminate many headaches for IS/IT managers. Managers of small offices will also benefit - especially in areas with high turnover or staff churn. For people like me who are involved in general research, some weeks locked docs with missing passwords seem to be a way of life. Passware's product works, within reasonable limits, and it's recommended. It will pay for itself the very first time a password is recovered for some crucial document, spec or design. Note: You can also purchase individual modules for specific applications such as Mirosoft Word and Microsoft Access. Passware Password Recovery Kit Product Web site: http://www.lostpassword.com/ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Publisher / Senior Editor: Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@compunotes.com Senior Editor: Howard Carson, mailto:agitater@compunotes.com Managing Editor: Don Hughes, mailto:don.hughes@compunotes.com Archives: ftp://ftp.compunotes.com/archives Website: e-mail: mailto:feedback@compunotes.com Want to Write for Us?: mailto:agitater@compunotes.com fax: (314) 909-1662 voice: (314) 909-1662 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CompuNotes is: Available weekly via e-mail and on-line. We cover the PC computing world with comprehensive reviews, news, hot web sites, great columns and interviews. We also give away one software package a week to a lucky winner for just reading our fine publication! Never dull, sometimes tardy, we are here to bring you the computing world the way it is! Please tell every on-line friend about us! CompuNotes B440 1114 West Essex Ave. St. Louis, MO 63122 feedback@compunotes.com (C)2002 Patrick Grote ISSN: 1525-4534 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - sign up for Fantasy Baseball http://sports.yahoo.com *********************************************** The COMPUNOTES-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html