“New York City (has) the most infections–because New York has the most computers. But when the number of infections was factored in as a percentage of a city’s population, New York ended up near the bottom of the list and Atlanta, Georgia came out on top.  Birmingham AL, Denver CO, Chesapeake VA, and Madison WI round out the top five worst cities. On the other end of the spectrum, Jersey City, NJ has the lowest per capita malware infection rate…”

Maybe this explains in part why we’re so busy!

Malware steals your passwords and personal information.  If your PC is running slowly or exhibiting unwanted behavior (popups, lockups, fake anti-malware warnings and the like), stop ignoring the warning signs!  We can help, plus we can show you how to keep these problems from reoccurring!  Contact us today! 

The user interface and toolbars will be familiar to anyone who has ever used almost any modern word processor:

(click image below to open enlarged in a new tab or window)

DevVicky Word 2010 will create, edit and save files as .rtf, .htm, .docx, .doc, and .txt: 

An ODF to Word and Word to ODF converter is included as well.

For web editing, HTML stylesheet options are configurable from the Menu Bar via Options… HTML…

DevVicky Word 2010 will also export created files as .pdf and as .css:

PDF settings are configurable from the Menu Bar via Options… PDF…

Another nice feature is the Doc Reader, which uses the Microsoft Text-to-Speech Engine to read your documents to you.  The machine-read text can also be saved as a .wav file:

Click the green Play arrow below to hear Microsoft Mary talk about us:

As a free, standalone word processor, we think you’ll find this program hard to beat.  Interested in finding out more?  Details and a link to download the program are on the DevVicky website.

We’d like to thank all of our regular and new customers for their support.  Thanks also to all who have contacted us, even if we haven’t yet done business.

If you’re having a computer issue, don’t hesitate to contact us - we’ll work you into our schedule quickly and do what it takes to get your PC up and running smoothly again!

hut00009 writes on the Pinching Your Pennies forums:

“So I thought that I would compile a list of ways to remove/suppress your information from the web, data brokers, marketers, social network aggregators, etc. This list comes in handy if you want to reduce those who have or could have access to your personal information.”

We learned of this via The Consumerist… 

(click the image below to open it enlarged in a new tab or window…)

So, how do Windows users avoid getting infected by malware?  Here are a few basic steps:

• Keep Windows and all installed sofware up-to-date.

• Use a good antimalware program.  We like Microsoft Security Essentials and Javacool Spyware Blaster.

• Practice “safe hex“…

As always, if you need help recovering from a malware infestation or with proactive prevention, contact us!  We’d be happy to be of assistance!

Mark Thompson recently posted 45 Web Builders to Create an Insanely Awesome Free Website on the 1stwebdesigner blog.

The Smashing Apps blog recently featured 13 Easy And Powerful Website Building Tools To Create Your Free Site.

This list is aimed at college students, but the general public will find many of these useful as well. 

Megan Jones (the author of the above-linked article) writes:

The following portable apps cover everything from documents to note-taking to organization to security to helpful tools and more, are all small enough to go anywhere, and cost absolutely nothing.

See also John Haller’s PortableApps.com, PortableAppZ, Pendriveapps.com, App-Stick, and The Portable Freeware Collection for more.   Portable freeware suites or compilations like the Lupo PenSuite are also available.

…with the Internet, almost anything you could ever want to know is at your fingertips. You just have to learn how to access it.

We agree wholeheartedly and have found this to be the case.  We blogged three years ago this month about the American Library Association’s Best Free Reference Web Sites. 

Mr. Ms. Chapman’s article gives tips and sites that, while they will not make you an immediate expert at research, will enable you to expand and practice your search technique.  It is a definite keeper!

This campaign has now ended.  SoftMaker donated 6,089 Euros (ten Euro cents per download) to charity and development projects around the globe.  We hope you were able to participate! 

Here’s how to make SoftMaker Office 2008 save files in Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls, .ppt) formats automatically.  You’ll need to do this in all three (TextMaker 2008, PlanMaker 2008, and Presentations 2008) programs. 

After installation, click on Tools, Options… in the menu bar…

…and and then click on the Files tab at the top of the Options window. 

The drop-down menu labeled Default file format (as shown above) allows the default file format to be set to your choice of Microsoft Office-compatible formats.

TextMaker documents will then be saved with a .doc file extension, PlanMaker spreadsheets will be saved with a .xls file extension, and Presentations will then be saved with a .ppt file extension automatically by default so they can be shared with Microsoft Office users.

Now there’s a portable version of this software, packaged to be run directly from a USB drive without installing anything nor leaving a footprint on the host PC.

The portable version was put together via a partnership between IBM, VMware and NSEC, and was packaged for NSEC’s Keypod line of USB storage devices. 

It can be downloaded free of charge from the Keepod Store.  This version will run from any USB storage device; ownership of a Keepod is not necessary.  You will have to register and give a valid email address to get to the 188 MB file download.

Be advised that this version weighs in at a beefy 493 MB unzipped:

Like many portable applications, it doesn’t start up as quickly as the installed-to-the-hard-drive version.  The portability factor is, in our view, a reasonable tradeoff for a slower-than-expected start up.  Once the suite is open performance is on par with the installed version.   

Edit 01/14/2010:

Here’s a more in-depth article about IBM Lotus Symphony courtesy of the How-To Geek…