TrueCrypt

Got files you need to protect from others? TrueCrypt is a great piece of software and it's completely free! It's very easy to setup, but if you need help with it the people on their forums are fantastic. Another piece of software I use, which I'll leave nameless, I asked for help on their forums and the people were snotty and a lot of times did not answer. The few times I've asked questions in refernece to setting up and using TrueCrypt for the first time, the forum people were quick to reply and helpful.

I am unsure of every feature TrueCrypt has, but I'll tell you what I like about it and what I use it for.

Let's say you have a computer with a bunch of free space on the hard drive. Let's say you want to store files and not risk others seeing them or even having access to them. You could be storing business files, bank information, or heck hiding porn from our old lady. You can basically make a TrueCrypt Container. This will show up in My Computer looking like another hard drive. It's password protected so only the person with the password can get in. It's strongly encrypted so not just anyone can hack it either.

What you do is create a container. It acts just like a hard drive would. You can copy files, delete files, make folders, and do other operations as you normally would. You first create the container by telling TrueCrypt how much space you want to make it (such as 1GB in size) and format it. Formatting might take awhile depending on your computer processor and memory. You can store this file anywhere on your computer. I'm sure people can still delete this file, but at least they can't access and see what's inside. Once your container is created, you need to mount it in order to use it. This is as easy as firing up TrueCrypt, selecting your container, entering your password, and hitting mount. You can mount it to any drive letter you want. When you're done using the container, go back into TrueCrypt and dismount the drive.

Room Planner

Bob's Discount Furniture has a bunch of stores in the Northeast (USA). They have some great prices. I'm picking up THIS BEDROOM SET only in darker wood.

Anyway, if you need to plan a room, try the Room Planner link up top. It's really good for being free. Here's my little bedroom:

That's a king size bed, night stand next to it, a computer desk in the top left, a large women's dresser (vanity?) which I may not attach the mirror and instead put on a large tv, and in the closet is my dresser. Oh, and I put the air conditioner on the left. The other door which I did not draw a room for is my bathroom.

You have to register to use the room planner, but there's tons of things you can do.

You can design walls, put in doors or windows, and drop in tons of items from desks to beds to televisions even arcade games, ping pong tables, pool tables, bars, etc. Everything can be rotated and resized. The stuff I listed you can drop in is just the tip.. there's a bunch of other stuff sorted by room.. bathroom, kitchen, gaming room, etc. You can also color things if you want. You can also lock items in place so you don't accidentally move them when you don't want to.

You can save your designs and export them as I did above, or use the share button to email a link to someone where they can see your room and they can play around with your room without signing in.

The system is not without flaws though. They're mostly minor issues, which really just annoy me and nothing more. Sometimes it will have an error when trying to save. For me I closed the browser and reopened and I'm able to save again. I am unsure if it saves text. I'd imagine it should, but mine is not there. Maybe that was one time the save wasn't working. I had written what everything was on top of it so you'd know what is a dresser, etc., but that doesn't show. Also, sometimes when trying to put to walls together it gets a "jittery" motion when you get near the other wall. I wanted my walls to be perfectly lined up, but sometimes it's hard. Like I mentioned, just annoying, nothing major.