New Years resolution tracking tool - Joe's Goal

As per my first post of the year this year I have decided to change a few things in my life for the better. So I needed a tool to track my New Year resolutions progress over 2009. Surfing the net I came across a free online tool called Joe's Goal. This tool is very simple to use to track you goals for 2009, all that it involves is creating a online account which takes less then a minute to do on its homepage. Then on the interface that is made up of a seven days of the week with goals on one side and days on the top. You mark the day if you reached your goal for the day. For example if you goal was to exercise and you did it today, you would have green tick in the box. On the other hand you can also record your bad habits as well for example if your goal was not to eat cake for today and you did eat cake then you mark it and it will appear with a red cross. At the bottom of the grid it will provide a telly for the day. There are also basic reports that you can run, and you can keep logs of all of your activities as well.

So Wantoks if you want to try and achieve your New Years resolutions but need a bit of extra help to get there try giving Joe's Goal a go.

Free IBM open source office suite - Lotus Symphony

IBM Lotus Symphony is a freeware open source office suite which is based on the OpenOffice project. IBM Lotus Symphony offers three products Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. So Wantoks basically it is offering you a free alternative to Microsoft's Word, Excel, and Power Point. Lotus Symphony is a large download for the Wantoks that use dial up at 200MB. So you might want to consider requesting for a Free CD. All in all it is another good freeware product that can save you a few kina, instead of you having to buy Microsoft Office.

Software to hide data from prying eyes - HideMe

Recently my nephew came to me to seek some advice about how he could protect or hide his diary that he keeps on a shared computer with his sister. The solution I suggested to him was to use HideMe. HideMe is a freeware application that you can use to hide files in a picture. The data is hidden in the picture and can be extracted with 7Zip or any other Zip-Program like Winzip, etc. To the unsuspecting eye all it looks like is another picture, which in acutal fact it is not. Great little piece of software to hide sensitive data or if you just want to act like a sceret agent.

With the rate that laptops, etc are stolen in Papua New Guinea this may be an easy option to protect sensitive data in the event that you laptop is stolen.

Open++ add items to your right click menu

Open++ is free software that lets you add a new sub menu to your right click context menu. It has advanced options for adding almost any function that you want. Basically what Open++ does is provide a utility to add your own functions, when you right click. It also allows you to launch applications, files, folders, etc. Currently it is a Windows only product. A great tool for the Wantoks that want to speed up their ability to access key applications, files, and folders quickly.

P2P freeware software - FrostWire

For those wantoks out there that use the peer to peer software Limewire I would suggest you take a look at Frostwire. Frostwire is a peer to peer file sharing software on the Guntella network and uses BitTorrent protocols as well. It is writtern in Java, and comes under the GNU licence and is a free software. It has all the features that Limewire Pro has and the best thing about it for people that use file sharing software is that it connects to BitTorrent. So basically don't pay for Limewire when you can get Frostwire for free and it connects up to BitTorrent.

The features that Frostwire offers are:

• Completely free & open source
• No spyware or adware
  
• itune intergration
• BittTorent Support
• Connects to more sources then Limewire & Limewire Pro
• Junk result filters
• Community Chat rooms
• Proxy support
• Firewall to Firewall transfers

The Frostwire GUI is looks the same as Limewire and opperates the same as Limewire. With a fee add bouns of having a section where you can connect up to BitTorrent. To be honest while trialing Frostwire over the last week to do this post, and you would not go back to using Limewire or Limewire Pro. So file sharing wantoks save a few kina and use a free and more superior product then Limewire. If you are going to do Peer to Peer file sharing use Frostwire.

Fedora 10 released - free linux operating system

Just the other day I was over at Tuuans & Dukduks and was posting a comment regarding freeware operating system Ubuntu. Well the Fedora project has just released the latest version of Fedora 10. Fedora 10 is a free Linux based operating system which is sponsored by Red Hat.

The latest release is around 682Mb in size so sorry for all the wantoks out there with dial up connections but it is going to take forever and a day if you were going to attempt to download such a big ISO file. But never fear there are other options out there for wantoks with dial up connections. If you want you can purchase a copy of Fedora 10 online or you can order a copy of Fedora for free online (click here for free ordering of Fedora).

For more information on Fedora I suggest you visit the Fedora website by clicking on the link above.

What does this mean for my wantoks in Papua New Guinea well it is a free operating system. So you don't have to spend money on paying for a operating system for your computer which can set you back well over K800 at Datec, etc. Not only does it save you on spending money on an operating system, it also comes with open office so you don't have to buy programs like Microsoft Office, etc.

How to track your bandwidth usage for free - bitmeter

For six months when I was using Daltron's (ISP) wireless service at the end of the month I would see the bill and wounder if I really did use the amount of data that they were charging me for. I know that Daltron does offer a page where you can see how much data you have used. But how do I know that their data is correct. Well this post is going to introduce you to a tool that I have recently discovered that that allows Windows users to see how much data they are chewing through. The tool is called bitmeter which is offered free from download.com.

What bitmeter does is that it allows you to visually monitor your Internet connection by showing a scrolling graph that shows your download and upload speed over a period of time. The features of bitmeter are:

• Graphical and numerical displays of historical data,
  
• Web interface,
  
• alerts,
  
• stopwatch,
  
• calculator,
  
• transparent/float/click-through modes,
  
• help file,
  
• audio notifications,
  
• configurable color-schemes

Follow these instructions to set up the monitoring notification to let you know once you have hit your monthly megabytes limit.

1. Download & Install bitmeter from download.com
2. Once bitmeter is installed and running click on the bitmeter icon in your windows task bar to see a graphical view of your data usage.
3. To access bitmeter's features right click on the bitmeter icon and it will show you a list of options. The one that we are looking for is called ISP restrictions. Now select it.
4. Make sure that you select ISP restrictions apply check box.
5. Select what day of the month your new billing period starts.
   
6. Then you need to put in your monthly down load limit.
   
7. Then select when bitmeter should alert you that you are getting towards the end of your limit.
8. click Apply