RoboForm for iPad

Church communicators often have multiple online account logins -- web site administration, email administration, blog accounts, YouTube accounts, etc. These can be a nightnmare to remember if you adopt good security practices of using multiple user name s and different passwords everrywhere.

The solution is to use good password mamnagement software. Roboform is one such program.

RoboForm Everywhere 7 now is available for iPad 2, iPhone, and iPod Touch. It requires purchase of an annual subscription to RoboForm Everywhere. RoboForm Everywhere is a "cloud solution" that keeps your web site, login name, and password data on a remote server.
I wanted to know how the app compares with the Roboform Desktop/laptop edition. Here's what I found so far...

• Tough to contact. I had a hard time finding out how to contact the RoboForm developer (Siber Systems) by email to ask some questions.
  Here's the tech support URL -- they reply by email.
• Annual ssubscription fee. The 1-yr. subscription cost is currently discounted to $10. Added years are the normal $20. I'm not sure I like that. The Desktop edition lets you keep one version for several years and get updates for the version you buy free. New version upgrades cost $20. I guess that their rationale is that the RoboForm Everywhere edition can be used on multiple computers. Also, this cloud subscription service is in keeping with the software industry cloud service fee schemes. But to me it smacks of a way to keep the dollars flowing for the developer.
• App security issue. I do not like being limited to a 4-digit PIN for access to the RoboForm app itself. It should allow at least the option to use a strong password (upper case letters, lower case letters, numerals, and symbols). After all, this one app password opens up a storehouse of all your key web sites, login names, and passwords. The reply to my question about this from Siber Systems is that PIN to access the app is in addition to the complex password you can use to access your actual Roboform data stored online. But since the iPad iOS 4.0 and higher lets you choose a 4-digit PIN or a complex password, as an app dealing in information security, I'd like to see RoboForm adopt that option too.
• Data protection. Like with many cloud services, the quality of protection your data gets is at the mercy of the company that stores your data. Banks, credit card companies, and other businesses keep showing up in the news as getting hacked. So if you always keep your own computer patched and always practice safe computing, you may want to use the local desktop/laptop version. 
• Convenience vs. security trade-off. Using Roboform Everywhere to store information at a remote server and be able to access it from anywhere may be too tempting to pass up.

Related links

• Roboform Everywhere 7 overview
• Roboform Everywhere 7 Review (PC Magazine, Feb. 2011)
• Roboform Desktop 7 review (PC Magazine, Feb. 2011)

Managing a lot of passwords

I have tons of web sites that require logins and passwords. Remembering them all is not really feasible, since I use a different name and password for most sites. So I researched password manager programs.

I like RoboForm for managing web site login names and passwords. The program is available for the below Operating Systems:

• Windows
• MacOS
• Linux

RoboForm also has three "flavors":

• RoboForm Desktop.
  This edition is for one desktop or laptop computer. The encrypted password-related files are stored on that computer. If you use this solution, remember to "back up" your lengthy site, login name, and password data and store it somewhere other than on your computer.
• RoboForm Everywhere.
  This is a cloud solution. Your login and password data is stored on remote servers. Since the solution is a cloud one, your login and password data is available from any computer with Internet access. I'm personally hesitant to blindly trust most companies' information system security, but the choice is there. Using RoboForm on a mobile device requires this edition.
• RoboForm2Go.
  This is portable solution for one USB flash drive. This may be a handy solution if you use both a desktop and a laptop, as you could use RoboForm2Go on the USB drive on each computer. The license is per USB drive, not per computer.

Platforms supported by RoboForm:

• Desktop/laptop
• Internet Explorer
• FireFox
• Chrome
• Opera
• Safari (MacOS)
• USB Drives (RoboForm2Go)
• U3 flash drives
• Mobile (app is free, but use requires the RoboForm Everywhere edition)
• Android
• iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
• Blackberry

There are other program managers on the market, but I'm fond of this one. It also originally came recommended by Fred Langa (Senior Editor, Windows Secrets newsletter), which encouraged me to check it out.

I'll report on RoboForm for an iPhone/iPad/iPod in a future post.

New, smaller PDF Reader

Adobe products, even the free Adobe Reader, are getting attacked pretty heavily these days and experts say it's likely to continue. The security patches are coming out much too frequently for my piece of mind. So what's a great solution if your church needs a free PDF reader? Nuance PDF Reader.

Nuance now offers the free PDF Reader. It's much smaller, fast, and full of features. I have been waiting for this to come out, as my favorite PDF editing software is from Nuance also -- PDF Converter Professional. I've been testing PDF Reader ever since it was announced a few days ago. Last night I removed Adobe Reader from my computer.

Keep your church office and personal computer safer -- remove Adobe Reader and use Nuance PDF Reader instead.

PDF Converter Professional -- Acrobat replacement
Nuance was originally called ScanSoft. They are well-known for the industry-leading OminPage OCR software and for the PaperPort software  that comes with some scanners. They also produce the Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software. I first learned about Nuance when researching a replacement for Adobe Acrobat for work. I am very enthusiastic about the quality and features of Nuance PDF Converter Professional. Their conversion from PDF back to an Office type file such as MS Word, is exceptionally good.

I recommend replacing Adobe Acrobat if not for the security considerations as well as pricing. My replacement is PDF Converter Professional from Nuance.

The Nuance folks tell me that Microsoft hired them to provide the file-to-PDF converter for Microsoft Office ... you may notice a "printer" called "DocuCom" or "DocuCom PDF driver" -- that's done by Nuance.  Out of that PDF Converter program grew PDF Converter Professional, a full-blown, powerful PDF editor as well as converter.

PDF Converter Professional is much less expensive that Adobe Acrobat and has the features that businesses and churches need. Why pay the outrageous amount Adobe asks for Acrobat? Even with a church discount through the UMC TechShop, Acrobat is twice as expensive as PDF Converter Professional.

ScribeFire blog editor for FireFox users

ScribeFire is a great blogging tool for FireFox users. Some of the ScribeFire features I like the best:

• Categorize and tag your blog posts
• Post an entry as a draft
• Save works-in-progress as notes
• Use FTP to upload files
• Upload images
• Set timestamps

ScribeFire blog editor for FireFox users

ScribeFire is a blogging tool for FireFox users. Some of the ScribeFire features I like the best:

• Categorize and tag your blog posts
• Post an entry as a draft
• Save works-in-progress as notes
• Use FTP to upload files
• Upload images
• Set timestamps

I used ScribeFire to upload this as a draft post to the blog. Then I checked the code with the Blogger editor. Here's a couple things I learned:

• ScribeFire surrounds all the text you add in ScribeFire with a DIV element and a link to the W3C Validator. OK, but a bit much and not something I needed to add. So I deleted the DIV and associated link.
• ScribeFire uses no paragraph elements. Though that's the Blogger default too, I much prefer to use code for paragraphs and to use CSS as desired for the P element.
• ScribeFire left extra spaces around a lot of text and did not pull lines together. This can cause problems in Blogger and needed code cleanup.

In short, the tool is quite handy, but you may want to do some code cleanup before posting to your blog. I'll use this due to its ease of use but will publish only as a draft. I'll do code cleanup in Blogger. That's annoying for such a potentially great tool.

Open Office 3.0 features

OpenOffice version 3.0 is about due for release and the OpenOffice.org Ninja blog has a decent article on some new OOo 3.0 version features.

Just try to ignore some of the fanboy rants (both pro- and anti- Microsoft Office) in the tons of comments. My take: OpenOffice is definitely improving but I'd like to see more and enhanced features along with an improved look and feel (user interface). That would make it an easier sell to more managers in the business community.

Also remember that Sun's StarOffice is free software you can grab as part of Google Pack. Installed that for my mother-in-law and she's never asked for any help with it -- a great sign of ease-of-use for the basic user.

Have a Picnik with your photos

So you want to do some nice photo editing and maybe even a few fancy effects. But you don't want the hassle of learning some graphics program. Go to Picnik and use the free tools there.

All the photo adjustments are easy to access and very easy to use. Yet the results are great!

To make this app even sweeter, you can work on a photo from your computer, from Flickr, from a Picasa Web Album, from the web, from a webcam, or even from a Yahoo! image search result.

I did find that if I played around for several minutes with all sorts of adjustments to a large photo (1600x1200, 1+MB) Internet Explorer 7 crashed. It may have to do with temporary files in use, a bug in the beta Picnic software, or possibly an MSIE issue. I will stress-test FireFox similarly soon. But even though IE 7 crashed, after accessing the site again, the original adjusted image I'd made appeared. Cool.

With this online Flash-based application, you can:

• Resize
• Crop
• Rotate
• Adjust "exposure", including using a histogram, if you prefer
• Adjust color saturation and hue
• Adjust red-eye
• Add Sepia effects
• Add Black and White effects
• Boost color saturation
• Soften the image
• Sharpen the image (though the controls seemed to sharpen too much even at a low setting)
• Add a frame ("border") and matte
• Create a vignette

Most of these effects use a slider bar to control degree of effect applied. Instant on-screen results show. I found the operation fast (I use a cable modem), effective, and the results good looking. I was able to apply more effects than I normally use in much less time than with my graphics program.

The Picnik people promise even more effects are coming. An enhanced (paid) version will give you even more options, but the basic version offers much more than I expected and yet is very easy to use. Even in Beta, I recommend you give Picnik a whirl. Grab a photo, edit, use some creative tools, then save and share. It's easy and fun.

Keep up with Picnik happenings via their Picnik blog.

Writely has become Google Docs

Google has now renamed Writely and made it part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

A fast test of the interface shows that it includes:

• Full-screen width text writing and editing.
• Common and easy to understand icons for buttons, such as bold, font, hyperlink, text alignment, cut, copy, and paste.
• Toolbar "Style" includes frequently used options, but no ability to add a style.
• Spell-check, with the ability to add words to your dictionary.
• Periodic auto-save.
• Collaborate with other .
• A "Publish" capability that can send a doc to a blog (but not multiple blogs).
• Insert an image, table, comment, bookmark separator, or special character.
• Edit the HTML that makes up the doc.
• Track revisions.
• Preview
• Save as Open Office or even PDF

Writing: Writely coming soon

The free Writely online application will start issuing "invitations" in July. People have described Writely as an "web word processor" or a "wiki with permissions". Some features include:

• Edit, save, and share files online
• Add tables, images, links, colors
• Limit view and edit access to specific docs
• Collaborate with others and see who made changes when
• Easily compare versions and revert a doc to a prior version
• Make a web page from a doc
• Edit in HTML if you want
• Create a blog post and post it from Writely
• Use blog categories. This may also imply that Blogger, also owned by Google, will allowing use of categories starting in July.

Not on the list to get an email notice when you can sign up? Request an invite.

Presentation Tips

Do you want to create more effective PowerPoint presentations? Check out Guy Kawasaki's pages:

• Presentation Zen
• Presentation Tips
• What is good PowerPoint design?

Methods of PowerPoint presentation design:

• Lessig Method
• Godin Method
• Kawasaki Method
• Takahashi Method
• Wabi-Sabi and Presentation Visuals

Blog from MS Word

If you have Microsoft Word 2000 or higher and your computer's Operating System (OS) is Windows 2000 or higher, Blogger offers a free plug-in for Word that lets you create, edit, and post blog entries.

Blogger for Word

Feed Reader reviews

You don't really have to come to this web page to read the latest posts. All you have to do is set up your computer to receive the "feed" from this page.

A "feed" is the information about a posting here -- the title, date/time, and text of the post. You can access those via a "FeedReader" (also called an "news aggregator"). Most are free.

Once you "subscribe" to a feed, your NewsReader automatically checks for new posts when you open it. Of course, you can still just check back here now and then.

cnet has reviews of several feed readers. An executive summary... if you use Internet Explorer, it looks like Pluck is a good one to try. [ Download Pluck ]

If you'd like to read blog feeds via a separate web page that collects "feeds" from different blogs for you, try the Google Reader or NewsGator.

If you are a FireFox user, you can "drag" a web address for a blog to your bookmark bar and it adds an orange "feed" icon. Clicking on that icon lets you see all current posts for that blog. Internet Explorer 7 is reported to also add this feature.