Stormbringer's Thunder

Edited Buon giorno.   In my business, keeping secrets is paramount. Sometimes when I send Lela and Nicky out to collect payments, they have no idea who they are calling on until they get most of the way there. But never mind about that now. For what I am about to say, I received no vig. Why should I? It's Open Source, and free. On another computer, I had a copy of AxCrypt by Axantum . This little dandy lets you encrypt your files so that nobody can get at them (even Hal the Hacker was impressed). You can make a self-extracting .EXE file and pass it along. This is quite different from TrueCrypt (also Open Source), which "mounts" a virtual drive on your computer, and knows how not to be seen. Bit of a steep learning curve for the details, though, but exceptionally secure. AxCrypt, in its default state, does not hide the fact that a file is encrypted. But so what? I was impressed earlier today when I found a leftover archived encrypted file (yeah, big words again, but ...

Buon giorno. Yours truly is a bit wired today. I've made it clear in the past that I'm a proponent of freeware and Open Source software. (No, I'm not ready to tackle Linux without a tutor.) Although both are technically free, freeware is often the product of one developer being generous and giving away his or her work (sometimes as a way to attract attention to other products that are for sale), and Open Source is available to anyone with the necessary skills to develop; a group effort, if you will. Click on the above link for more information about Open Source. Much of my favorite software is Open Source. I like the guiding principles behind it, and that it seems to be a labor of love. Firefox , Open Office (replacements for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and others), 7-Zip file compression and others . I found a couple that are new to me. Sort of. Couple, that is. You'll see. For someone that wants to do Bible study on their computer, with multiple versions to com...

Buon giorno. In my last post, I was emphatic that if someone is going to be a Minimalist, that they should do it at their own pace and in their own way. There is no creed or code other than the consensus that you cut back on non-essentials as much as possible so that you have time and money for things that you think are important. I want to expand on the part where I said that Minimalists can make themselves miserable by viewing every move they make through a filter of, "Does this fit with the Minimalist lifestyle?" "Yeah, the buttons on your shirt say you've been expanding again!" Clam up, Nicky. You do want that bonus, don't you? Anyway. If you go around testing and judging yourself, filtering your every action through whether or not it fits your chosen philosophy, you'll make yourself miserable. This is mainly because there is no creed or code. That thought should be liberating, so do not make it into a prison! Here are some ways that I can ima...