What if Hilary Rodham Clinton had used encrypted email instead of a private email service? Could anyone have uncovered her conversations? We don't know the answer, but we have one word for privacy seekers: encryption.
We've been trying out the free trial version of StartMail, a $60-per-year encryption service. It allows you to send unreadable email that becomes readable when the recipient answers a secret question. All they see at first is your name and the subject line. Your "sent mail" folder is also encrypted.
Since everything takes place on the Web, as with Gmail or Yahoo mail, there's no installation. Use it at home or work and no one but a confederate will be able to read the mail. It comes with 10 gigabytes of email storage.
You could also try a free encryption program, if you don't need a tidy mailbox. We tried Infoencrypt.com. The process couldn't be simpler. Go to the website, type in your message, type in a password and click "encrypt." When you save it, you get a link to the message. Share the link, and if the recipient has the password, it instantly decrypts.
Unfortunately, the message will lack formatting. We wrote down four great Adam Smith quotes, with spaces between each one, and it came out as one paragraph, with no spaces.
Reader Problem
It turns out McAfee isn't the only anti-virus company that wants to charge you big bucks whenever you have a problem. A reader alerted us that this happened with Avast, the free anti-virus we have often recommended.
The reader wrote that his adult daughter bought a two-year support contract from Avast. They asked her to pay an extra $120 for an emergency remote cleaning service, which she did. Unfortunately, her laptop kept crashing and freezing anyway. She talked to three people in customer support but they said it was past the five-day support window, so forget it. We sent our reader's note to our Avast contact and were told that our reader's daughter would get a full refund. (Bob cautioned Joy about this story, because we can't promise that the power of the press will work in all cases.) We still think the free Avast is fine, just don't pay for support contracts or servicing. We have a long-standing rule that we never pay for an extended service contract.
App Happy
• This for That: Visual Schedules is designed to help children with autism. It's free through April for iPhone/iPad or 99 cents for Android. It helps break down tasks into easy-to-follow steps, helps ease the transition between activities, and gives them rewards for good behavior.
• Localeur gives you local tips for 14 large U.S. cities. It's also available without the app at Localeur.com.
• EyeReader makes it easy to see a restaurant menu in low light. It uses your phone's light, and magnifies the text.
Email Marketing
Email marketing service companies provide templates for emailed newsletters, ads and fundraising materials. They also help target your audience, time your campaign, and analyze the results. Finally, they'll send you a warning if you're in danger of getting blocked for sending too much email.
Here's an example of costs from one of the leading companies, MailChimp. They let you send up to 2,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers for free; beyond that, it's about $10 per month. There's a comparison of major services at email-marketing-options.com.
Internuts
• HRTV.com has replays of major horse races. Bob was recently looking for the Florida Derby, and couldn't find it. Joy finally found it by Googling "Florida Derby race replay." That's when we found out they had video of many major races including some long past.
• Quora.com/What-is-your-best-kitchen-advice has dozens of great kitchen tips. Did you know oiling the shells of your eggs will make the eggs last three or four extra weeks? Wrap celery in foil and it will last almost a month. Poke a lemon with a toothpick if you just need a few drops, then seal it up again with tape. The readers' comments are great.
Affordable 3-D Printer
A 3-D printer used to cost $3,000 and up. Now there's one called Tiko for $179.
It's not out yet, but you can read all about it at Kickstarter.com. In the first three hours on the site, it raised more than the $100,000, which was its goal. With a month still to go, it has blown past $584,000.
This mirrors the history of other technologies: expensive at first, gradually coming down. Joy's first computer cost $5,000; a new one now, many times more powerful, costs a tenth of that.
3-D Printer Info Source
With all the new 3-D printers, new materials and new software, it's hard to keep up. The information blasts can be dizzying.
Senvol.com/database has a free search engine for sorting through all the materials and all the machines out there. We did a search on materials. First, we had the option to specify ceramics, polymer (plastic), sand, wax, composite or metal. But that was just the beginning. From there we could choose the tensile strength, the flexural strength and many other variables. There was another category for how well the material withstands various temperatures and another for the material's hardness and density. The machine selection has 37 printer manufacturers to choose from and a lot more variables to specify. This is a happy hunting ground for an engineer or a hobbyist.
Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at [email protected] and [email protected].
SundayMonday Business on 04/13/2015