Hidetext.net lets you convert text to an image. This means you can hide passwords, personal messages, pieces of code, or any kind of private information on forums, blogposts, emails, irc, msn-aim chats, [etc]

Usage is simple, just type in your text and click a button to generate an image. Additionally, you can use their email specific tool to create a multi-color, multi-font image of your email which essentially makes it readable only to humans.

A great article which covers this tool is available here. This is definitely worth a bookmark if you do a lot of posting on web sites or want to publish your email on your web site.

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This extension will allow you to easily control cookie permissions. It will appear on your statusbar. Just click on the icon to allow, block, or temporarily allow the site to set cookies. You can also view or clear the cookies and exceptions by right clicking on the statusbar icon. For safer browsing you may choose to deny cookies globally and then enable them on a per site basis.

Basically, what NoScript does for javascript, CookieSafe does for cookies. While I do not consider cookies to be nearly as dangerous as scripts, this is definitely something the security conscience user will want to consider.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

All this just means you shouldn’t forget about log file analysis for web traffic. While you usually cannot get the same amount of detail as the javascript variety, when you have logging on your web server every visit is recorded, regardless. For a great log analysis tool, check out AWStats. I have used this for many years on my servers and it is fantastic.

Granted only a small percentage of people use script blockers, but if you run a tech blog (like this site) a higher percentage of your visitors may be using one which can affect your traffic stats. When you use log file analysis, you know every visit is captured.

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No registration is required and usage could not be easier. Just enter information for both you and the recipient, upload your file and then send. It’s that easy.

Of course, there are some limitations with using the free option, but in the event you need to remove these, there is a premium option where you just have to pay a small fee to send the fax. Overall, either method sure beats having to go find a fax machine (and most likely pay to use it) elsewhere.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Recently I was going thru my password manager and realized there were a ton of accounts I simply didn’t use anymore, so I figured I’d get rid of them. Some I was successful with, while others.. not so much.

Deleting a Gmail account

Google has their services set up in such a way where Gmail is a product attached to your primary Google account. For example, FeedBurner, Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs, Google Alerts and so on are all products.

You have a few options here. You can either delete just the Gmail account, or delete the Google account entirely.

• Go to https://www.google.com/accounts (and yes, the https must be present).
• After logging in, click the Edit link next to My products.
• If you want to delete Gmail alone, click Remove Gmail permanently.
• If you want to close the entire account, click Close account and delete all services and info associated with it.

Deleting a Hotmail account

Microsoft is similar to Google in the respect that Hotmail is deemed a product attached to your Windows Live ID.

• Login to your Hotmail/MSN/Live account at http://login.live.com
• Click Close account
• You may be told that the system is unable to do it and that you have to "Close your Microsoft account". Go ahead and do it.

Is the Hotmail account truly closed at that point? No. The account will be treated as if you haven’t logged in for a few months. After a few days, all information will be removed, so I guess that’s the closest definition of "closed" you can get with a Windows Live ID.

Closing a Yahoo account

Yahoo makes it easy. Follow the steps here.

Closing an AIM account

I could not find a way to close an AOL/AIM account. After a Google search, it would appear the only way to "deactivate" one is to not login to it for six months. Not an elegant solution by any means, but it’s at least something.

Finding links to close other types of web accounts

All web services should make closing your account easy, but unfortunately they don’t. Everybody does it differently. But there are a few common threads.

• Names: It can be called "Close Account", "Remove Account", "Delete Account", "Terminate Account", etc.
• Links: I’ve seen several instances where the "Close My Account" link is black and non-underlined making it look like plain text when in fact it’s a link.
• FAQ: Try searching the FAQ for the web service you’re trying to close.
• Profile: Sometimes the link to close an account will be listed under "Profile".

If you cannot close the account, what do you do?

You will run into some instances where there is no way to close the account (like Identi.ca and AIM). Chances are the reason you want to close it out to begin with is to stop getting those stupid emails from the service. The easiest thing to do is to edit the profile and change it to use a throw-away address. Once done you won’t get anymore crap from them in your email.

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Piwik is a PHP MySQL software program that you download and install on your own webserver. At the end of the five minute installation process you will be given a JavaScript tag. Simply copy and paste this tag on websites you wish to track.

As you can see, installation on a web site is as simple as Google Analytics and all the stats are stored in a database you control. Additionally, you can expand Piwik with many available plugins.

If you run your own sites and like to study your stats, this is at least worth looking into.

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This new version boasts a faster javascript engine, HTML 5 support, private browsing and overall faster performance. If you are interested you can read about all the changes here.

Before upgrading, make sure all the add-ons you use are compatible with the new version. Personally, I like to hold off on new releases until a few service updates have been released, so I will not upgrade immediately. Of course, that is my personal preference so if you want to be on the bleeding edge, go get it.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Personally I think the term family friendly is fairly easy to figure out, however when it comes to YouTube the lines are blurred as it appears to be dependent on whether the producer is a company with deep pockets or an individual.

Want an example? This is what’s considered to be family friendly on YouTube:

The Big Question: Is the above truly family friendly or not? (Feel free to weigh in your opinion with a comment.)

Even though this is no more offensive than, say, watching a female volleyball team compete on television, the video was specifically posted to attract a male audience. It is blatantly obvious that sex is what sells this video more than anything else. And yes, I do mean sell; there are embedded advertisements when watching it on the YouTube site.

While it’s true the video is not necessarily offensive, it does get dangerously close to what’s considered family friendly and what isn’t.

Also, the video was posted by Playboy, a well known adult magazine publication. And we all know they have very deep pockets.

I’m not an advocate of censorship, but I am an advocate of spelling things out in very plain English.

YouTube has two major sections you should read up on concerning user-submitted content, that being Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. However neither gives YouTube’s definition of what they think family friendly means.

In television advertising, the definition of what family friendly means is explained in great detail. And if your content does not conform to that standard, it is not aired, period. YouTube is trying to be a new form of television, so shouldn’t they follow the same rigid standard or at least define what family friendly is?

What do you think?

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You can think of Miro as a Tivo for Internet TV as you can save shows from their guide and when new shows are available, they are automatically downloaded to your system. Additionally, Miro has a built in BitTorrent client so you can get new content through peer-to-peer networking.

To me, at first glance, this is a great program as you can almost instantly build a video library of shows you like. If anyone has been using Miro for some time, please post your thoughts with it.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

This is a good tidbit to know because you can apply small changes without having to go out and find and apply a new theme. For example, you can move the URL location bar under the selected tab (just like how Google Chrome handles it).

If you are curious about other uses, just google userChrome.css and see what is out there.

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