My top favourite free security tools

By Jonathan Camp

Top Security Free Tools

My top security tools and download links. These tools should keep you PC nice and secure; run regularly for a trouble / virus free PC!

AVG (fee anti-virus software that works with all platforms)
http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afe

spybot search and destroy (IMHO the best anti-spyware)
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

Spyware terminator (including realtime detection)
http://www.spywareterminator.com/download/download.aspx

Comodo Personal Firewall
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/download_firewall.html

ccleaner – disk space tool cleanup
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Defraggler (defrag tool)
http://www.defraggler.com/

Restore deleted files
http://www.recuva.com/

Complete file eraser program
http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

Index.Dat erasers (Permanent deletion of all history)
http://www.systenance.com/indexdat.php

MRU Blaster (delete most recent file list…)
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/mrudownload.html

FileChecker (tells you what files have been modified)
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/mrudownload.html

DOC scrubber (delete all embarrasing stuff from word doc files)
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/dsdownload.html

Disposable email account
http://mintemail.com/

File dump area for uploading for 30 days
http://file.io/

Encrypt Files (TrueCrypt is the best around)
http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php or
http://www.encryptfiles.net/

Lock your PC (better than ctrl-alt-del)
http://www.freewebs.com/lockplatinum/download.htm

Free and Legal Images

By Jonathan Camp

5 Sources for Free and Legal Images

Free stock photos metasearch

By Jonathan Camp

Sourcing Stock Imagery

We all need stock imagery from time to time and I think this is one of the areas of design that has steadily improved with the passing years.

Firstly, if you have very specific imagery needs and/or a lack of time, commercial stock houses like iStockPhoto, Corbis and (our sometime Design View sponsor) Fotolia.com have the range, and have become cheaper, more flexible (license-wise) and dramatically more usable over the past 3-4 years. Hooray for competition!

But perhaps the least expected development has been the continued rise of free image resource sites. It seems the breathtaking success of Flickr has helped to entrench the idea of sharing your imagery with the world, and free stock sites like SXC.hu, MorgueFile and Image:After have reaped the benefits in the form of an increasing influx of quality imagery from their communities.

Now, with the release of Picfindr.com, locating free stock imagery just got a little easier.

I’d describe Picfindr as a free stock site metasearch application, allowing you to query a handful of sites simultaneously, then review the results in a single window.

Rick Englert, developer of the service, describes it as “minimalist at the moment” — somewhere between alpha and beta — but already it provides some great features, including intelligent searching and allowing users to exclude images on the basis of their licensing requirements (i.e. author crediting, altering the image, or permission prerequisites).

Plans are also afoot for more advanced search options, including ‘AND/OR’ options and the ability to search by color, size or orientation.

All up, Picfindr is still a little raw, but already it’s a handy, free service that only seems likely to get better. Check it out.