My Home Among The Hills

This blog isn’t really about free programs, but from time to time, I’ll write something that might be interesting for someone to use.  These programs are nothing special really and, in most cases, something I throw together in a few minutes to solve some specific need.  

I am a software engineer by trade, but  I make no guarantees regarding the accuracy of any information you get from any program and any damage to your machine from use of these programs is your responsibility…you agree to that if you download any of these programs.  All that being said, I run these on my own computers and have no problems.  I make reasonable attempts to make sure they are good and functional programs.  I encourage you to run spyware and virus checkers against them (and tell me if you ever find an issue).  Ok, enough of that…here they are:

 

  Woot Watcher – There is a website called woot that typically lists one items for sale per day.  Usually, the item is a great value and is some sort of geeky, tech thing (though it can be about anything).  Some days, woot has a woot-off where they sell item after item, one item at a time.  On those days, I don’t want to refresh my browser every 30 seconds to see if a new item has appeared (yes, some items only last that long)…I would get nothing done.  Woot Watcher will check automatically and will alert you to changes.

 

  Randomizer (or 300kb version)-I participated in a blog meme called, “brought to you by the letter…”  Readers volunteered to be assigned a letter and come up with things they love that start with that letter.  I wanted a fair way to assign people letters so I wrote this thing to display a random letter upon request.

 

  DateDiff – There are numerous date difference calculators out there but I wanted my own so I wrote this one.  It will tell you how many days there are between two dates or what the date will be (or was) a certain numbers of days from today.

 

Encrypt – will allow you to encrypt or decrypt files or directories.  If you want to secure your bank or health records on your machine, this is right up your alley.  It’s pretty tough to crack so be sure you remember your password…there is no way to recover data without it! I’ll say it one more time…if you encrypt a file and then encrypt again and forget how many times you do it (or decrypt) you can easily loose your data.  Every encrypt needs a decrypt…and vice versa (send me a note if that doesn’t make sense).  Be careful with this program.  If used correctly, it can be very helpful.  If you aren’t careful, you can make a huge mess.  You have been warned.  I assume no responsibility for your use of this program, its effectiveness, etc…