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BHODemon A Browser Helper Object,
or BHO, is just a small program that runs automatically every time you
start your Internet browser. Usually, a BHO is installed on your system
by another software program. For example, Go!Zilla, the downloading
utility, installs a BHO created by Radiate (formerly Aureate Media);
this BHO tracks which advertisements you see as you surf the Web. The
natural question is: What do BHOs do? The technical answer is
"anything", but generally, it will have something to do with
helping you browse the Internet. Of course, some BHOs are what is called
"ad-ware" or "spyware": they do things like
monitoring the Websites you visit and report this data back to creators.
Although many persons are extremely concerned about them because of the
privacy issue, BHOs are not necessarily bad things, and most of them are
well intentioned and beneficial. For example, the P3P ("Platform
for Privacy Preferences") program spearheaded by the W3C (World
Wide Web Consortium) and major vendors, including Microsoft, AT&T,
and IBM, will be delivered as a BHO. Some BHOs, however, are placed
secretly on your system, and there is certainly no technical reason why
they could not be programmed to send information about your system (or
your Web surfing habits) over the Internet without your knowledge. Also,
there is no restriction on what a BHO can do your system; it can do
anything any other program can do: read or write (or delete) anything on
your system. Usually, software is installed on the system explicitly by
you, when you do so, you are, in effect, saying that you trust the
vendor. BHOs, however, have a history of being installed without the
users knowledge (fine print notwithstanding). Given that BHOs can do
absolutely anything to your system, and they are often installed without
your knowledge, there is a distinct potential for abuse by vendors. The
problem is, until now you had no way of knowing which BHOs are on your
machine, who put them there, and what they do. This is what BHODemon
does - it lets you easily manage your BHOs, and tells you what each BHO
on your system is doing. BHODemon scans your Registry for BHOs, and
presents any it finds in a list. By highlighting a BHO in this list, and
clicking the "Details" button, you can see information about
this BHO, and even disable it if you wish. BHOs are disabled by simply
renaming the DLL that houses them. By renaming the DLL, instead of
deleting it, you have the option of enabling it later if you wish. Why
would you want to do that? Because the program that installed the BHO
will not run if it can't find the DLL: Go!Zilla, for example, won't run
if you remove its BHOs. Since new BHOs are created all time, the writers
of the program have devised an easy way for you to tell them if you
encounter a new one. If a given BHO on your system is one that they have
seen before, you can click a button in BHODemon to be taken to their BHO
List Page on the Web, and view all the info they have on it. If,
however, the BHO is new to them, you can report it by simply sending an
email at BHODemon@DefinitiveSolutions.com . As users report new BHOs,
the BHO List Page becomes more and more comprehensive. You can download
this utility from www.definitivesolutions.com/files/bhodmon1.zip |
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This is a fortune cookie program for your pleasure. SmartBee contains more than a hundred thousand different cookies. It has everything from Murphy's laws, Devil's Dictionary, myths, jokes, computer mimics, facts, stories, Hacker Jargon File, Deep Thoughts and not to forget - quotes from famous persons. SmartBee's main features are Skinnable GUI, a highly efficient cookie compression algorithm for saving disk space, over one hundred thousand cookies that have been verified and duplicates have been removed, cookie extraction, create own cookie files and add your details to the cookie data files, searching through the entire cookie archives, finding appropriate cookies when you need them, reminding you for taking regular breaks to stretch muscles after hard work and a host of others. It requires DOS, Win3.5, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP, Intel 386 processor or better (a Pentium or similar CPU is recommended), 8 MB RAM and Internet Explorer 3.02 or higher to view the help files. To configure Smartbee enter the settings window from the main SmartBee window. Select a big font that almost covers the width of your desktop. You will find the font selection dialog from the Appearance tab of the configuration dialog. SmartBee can hide in the system tray to avoid consuming desktop space. You can find this option in the Window tab of the settings under "Show Window In". The option to enable automatic coffee breaks (or alternatively hints as to when you should stretch to avoid a computer neck is found in the Windows tab under "Auto coffee break every hour". E-mail signatures can be generated manually and automatically. You can find all the options for this in the Signatures tab of the configuration dialog. The "Make Now" button shows the current generated signature cookie in the main dialog. To run SmartBee at startup enable this option in the Miscellaneous tab under "Launch SmartBee at startup". You can enable word exclusions from the Exclusions tab of the configuration dialog. Add words as appropriate. Remember to add seldom used words and do not use common stop words like "a" and "is" (grammatical words, i.e. words that are found in statements). If you do, then this will slow down SmartBee as it needs to read many cookies before finding cookies without these common words in them. You can find this program here: http://ftp.geekcorp.com/pub/smartbee/sbee260c.zip Have They Read It Yet? This program will notify you when your e-mail has been read by its recipient(s). There are a number of reasons why you would need something like this: to make sure people know about important appointments, or maybe you just have crucial information you need someone to know about. Isn't this a bit sneaky and underhanded, though? Not exactly. With Have They Read It Yet, the recipient will see a special "stamp" that tells him or her that you're being notified. It's the only choice for honest, up-front people who want reliable read-notification and privacy-protection. Download from www.users.qwest.net/~brecheencolemars/SetupHTRIY.exe — Raman Mohan |
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