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Freebies!
By Dave Bilcik, member, Southern Tier Personal Com-
puter Club, NY
January 2016 issue, Rare Bits
http://www.pageorama.com/?p=stpcc1979
dlbilcik (at) yahoo.com
It’s that time of year again. The past year is
done and gone and a brand new year is here.
Are you ready with all your heartfelt resolutions
for this pristine year full of exciting possibili-
ties? Me neither. Will you be honest and re-
solve to lose the same 15 pounds you gained
and lost last year? How about getting one year
older by the end of the year (this one we can
all keep). January 22 is the date my odometer
turns over one more time so if you want to get
me something for the old birthday, Federal Re-
serve Notes ending in "0" are always nice.
Take the opportunity for some new experienc-
es (even humble ones) that will make this year
memorable for the next January 1. If you can’t
do something better, at least try different
(different works almost as well) in your new
year. At worst you won’t be bored and at best
you won’t be boring. Don’t be discouraged, not
everyone can live the high adventure of writing
“the” Freebies column.
Proper nutrition in the new year can be useful,
especially after you finished off the last of the
Christmas cookies, but you first have to know
what “proper” is. Freebies is here to help.
Health Sciences Academy has a free starter
nutrition course that is informative and gives
you some new (at least to you) ideas about
what you stuff in your face on a daily basis.
Who knows, you may find out you are in great
shape nutritionally (or not). Good or bad, head
over to http://thehealthsciencesacademy.org/
registrationfree-starter-nutrition-course/ to reg-
ister for your free course materials. You can
start making small changes now that will make
for a healthier new year. Do it now, the buy-in
is free. Look down and see your feet in 2016
(2017?)!
Win 10 has stirred up some controversy about
user privacy. One camp thinks that it is a major
step forward in user convenience in trying to
enhance the “user-experience” by tracking and
anticipating what the user wants in their use of
the system. The other group (some say slightly
more paranoid) thinks that Win 10 is a glorified
keystroke logger dressed up as an operating
system. The truth is probably in the middle
7
somewhere. The good news is that you can
configure the privacy settings in Win 10 to con-
trol how and what the system looks at when
the operating system is in use. Website
TradePub.com has a complementary e-book
“Preserving Your Privacy in Windows 10” at
http://www.tradepub.com/free/w_wini02/?
p=w_wini02, where you can download the e-
book and find out how to limit Win 10’s infor-
mation gathering on how you use your system.
Make informed decisions about your system,
the information it generates and how that infor-
mation is shared. If you do go the trade.com
site, check out all the other free industry relat-
ed material that they carry on the site after you
download your Win 10 e-book. You may also
find some industry specific publications that
will be useful to you in your current job.
Start the new year out right by protecting your
PC properly. Gizmo’s Freeware had a recent
update on the “Best Free Antivirus Software.”
For the full article and relevant links go
to...http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-
anti-virus-software.htm. The short answers to
which are the best are “Comodo Anti-virus”
and “Avast! Free Anti-virus”. The long answer
is to read the entire article and consider the
strengths and weaknesses of all the products
on the page first before pulling that download
trigger. Make the decision considering you and
your system in the mix. Research first, then go.
Are your e-mails important to you? If they are
then you need this next Freebie “Mailstore
Home.” It is an e-mail archiver and search utili-
ty that works with Windows versions XP SP3
up through Win10. You can send and reply
from the archive with your usual e-mail pro-
gram and upload from it if necessary. Get your
e-mail on a USB drive or an external hard-
drive. If your drive goes south your e-mail cor-
respondence and work product is safe; or if
your web-based account is hacked, you will
still have your e-mails (even the silly ones).
See http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-
home-email-archiving.aspx for details and the
download link for the latest version. Do you
know where your e-mails are in the new year?
My personal e-mail address is
dlbilcik@yahoo.com if you want to send me
comments, questions or cash. Please put
“Freebies” somewhere on the subject line so I
will have some idea about its contents. Tell us
about your best free software experience or
the best new years’ celebrations (the ones you
can remember) ever and I will pass it on. Hap-
py New Year!