New or Improved Software Offerings

Not a lot of new software offerings this week. But there are a few noteworthy ones you might be interesting in looking into.

BluetoothView -(freeware) - New NirSoft utility that allows you to monitor the Bluetooth activity around you.

For each detected Bluetooth device, it displays the following information: Device Name, Bluetooth Address, Major Device Type, Minor Device Type, First Detection Time, Last Detection Time, and more.

BluetoothView can also notify you when a new Bluetooth device is detected, by displaying a balloon in your taskbar or by playing a small beep sound.

This could be a really fun tool if your laptop supports Bluetooth!  See what's going on around you! As Nir Sofer points out, if your neighbors (or your own kids) have Bluetooth enabled devices, you can see when they come and go by "tracking" the devices.  Cool and creepy!

Revo Uninstaller - (freeware) -  Freeware - uninstall, delete, remove unwanted programs and traces easily.

What's new in Revo Uninstaller version 1.42:

• Added new cleaning options to Windows Cleaner tool
• Improved user interface of Windows Cleaner tool
• Improved handling of Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) based installations
• Added showing empty leftover folders after scanning
• Added detection of grouped taskbar buttons in Hunter mode
• Bug Fixed in Hunter mode - Detecting similar applications on desktop
• New languages are added!

KeePass 1.10 - (freeware) - This is my favorite password manager, and the latest version packs quite a few new additions, some of which I've highlighted below.

New Features:

• Added configuration file caching (highly increases performance when running KeePass from slow devices like USB sticks).
• Added mini mode (must be configured in the INI file manually; in mini mode, a lot of functionality is hidden; see help file - Technical FAQ).
• Added password generator option to exclude/omit user-specified characters in generated passwords.
• Added option to disallow repeating characters in generated passwords (both character set-based and pattern-based).
• Moved security-reducing / dangerous password generator options to a separate 'Advanced' dialog (if you enable a security-reducing option, the 'Advanced' button in the password generator window is shown in red).
• Internal random number generator is now additionally seeded using random bytes provided by the system's default CSP.
• Internal random number generator is now additionally seeded using a newly generated 128-bit GUID.
• A default user name for new entries can now be specified in 'File' -> 'Database Settings'.

Improvements:

• Changed field order: password follows user name now (note: if you use your previous configuration file, the columns in the main window will be ordered the old way; to change it, drag&drop the column headers manually to adjust the order).
• Improved startup time.
• Improved search performance.
• Improved internal menu handling.
• Improved print options dialog (replaced "export" by "print", excluded irrelevant export options, ...).
• Optimized performance of process memory protection algorithm.
• Minor improvements in the installer.
• Minor dialog text improvements.

Bugfixes:

• Password generator does not crash any more when trying to generate a password using an empty pattern + random permuting.
• The Ctrl-Alt-K global hot key correctly brings the KeePass main window to front when it's hidden behind other windows.
• Changing the state of the 'Randomly permute characters of password' option now correctly selects the '(Custom)' profile.

Java SE 6 Update 4 Release - (freeware) - This week version 4 of Java SE 6 has been released. So far, neither the internal Java updater or the Web Site are finding or reflecting the new version release just yet.  If you want it early (which is probably a good idea) you will want to manually download and install it.  Most home users will want to just get the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 4 version.  Download it and install.  Then go back and do a manual uninstall of the JRE 6 Update 3 version from your Control Panel's Add/Remove program list to remove the vulnerable version.

AutoRuns v9.02 - (freeware) - This update from Sysinternals fixes a bug where Autoruns would crash when deleting the last item on the Everything page.

TcpView v2.53 - (freeware) - This update from Sysinternals addresses a memory leak.

OpenedFilesView - (freeware) - This NirSoft tool allows you to view opened/locked files in your system (sharing violation issues).  Version 1.12 fixes the following issue: On Vista, OpenedFilesView now automatically requires to run as administrator (When User Account Control is turned on).

Get them before they are gone!

--Claus