Sticky Password Cloud 7 review: The ideal solution for password management across platforms

It's a multi-device world. It's not uncommon to have a work PC, a home PC, a smartphone, and a tablet, often with different operating systems. It's also an increasingly insecure world, where every week seems to bring news of a new data breach.

With more and more day-to-day work moving from the desktop to the browser, and the expectation of a seamless shift as you move from one platform to another, these two facts converge dangerously: A password shared among multiple sites means all of your data, and perhaps your entire online identity, is only as safe as the most poorly-secured site you visit. Sticky Password can help.

Sticky Password will alert you to passwords you might consider changing.

Sticky Password Cloud runs as a standalone application under Windows, but also integrates itself into multiple browsers. The user can exclude some supported browsers, if desired. It also has Droid and iOS apps, all of which can share a common database of passwords, memos, and so on, through your personal, albeit unfortunately named, StickyPortal. When a new device attempts to connect to the shared cloud data, a one-time PIN is sent to the email address used when you set up the account.

Sticky Password helps you manage dozens, or hundreds, of passwords. You don't need to remember a thing -- except your master password for Sticky Password itself, of course. While Sticky Password doesn't force you to use a different password for each site, it makes it very easy to do so. It recognizes (most) login or account setup screens, and if it sees something that looks like it's asking you for a password, it can generate one, including mixed case, numbers, and symbols.

Random passwords foil dictionary and pattern-based attacks.

Sticky Password integrates well with most major PC browsers. It appears as a clickable icon in the menu bar or status bar (depending on browser and preference), and thankfully does not add a toolbar. Support for browser upgrades is prompt. Sticky Password is very actively supported; the company recognizes that this is a vital utility to its users and, in my experience, reported bugs are addressed promptly.

An obvious downside is that if your Sticky Password database is lost (through catastrophic drive failure, for example), you may be in serious trouble. There are some solutions to this: You can do an export (plain or encrypted) of your password database, and store this in a secondary location (if it's not encrypted, it better be very secure). Further, it produces backup database files regularly. You can back these files up (or make sure your favorite backup program or service, such as Carbonite, includes them), instead of doing an export yourself. And, with Sticky Password Cloud, you can now sync your passwords across multiple devices, with the encrypted data stored remotely. The user is in control of if data is synced.

This is something each user must weigh carefully. Any time all your information passes through a single bottleneck, there's a risk. No matter how secure the servers are, there is always a chance of an unknown exploit being discovered, or a user error leaving an opening. On the other hand, failing to use unique passwords on each site opens up even more points of risk.

Sticky Password allows organization into folders, helpful for large databases.

Sticky Password Cloud adds in a few new features beyond the cloud functionality. Lamantine Software has added grouping for secure memos, improved support for import of bookmarks and passwords from additional browsers, and updated Sticky Password Cloud to the latest look and feel.

Licensing for Sticky Password Cloud is a bit unusual: It covers all devices for a single user for one fee, 20.00, which is good, but it must be renewed annually, which is less good. For those who are not multi-device users or who do not want syncing, there is Sticky Password Desktop, which has no time limits on its license, and no cloud functionality.

Lamantine Software donates a portion of Sticky Password Cloud sales to helping endangered manatees (Oh, the huge manatees!).

Keith Ramos

How often can you protect both data and aquatic mammals? Not often!

Sticky Password is a permanent part of my computing life. I have been using it day in and day out for two years now, and I have encountered only small issues, rapidly resolved. If you are using another password management tool, compare feature sets. If you aren't using a password management tool, you should be, and Sticky Password is one of the best.

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Review: Helium Music Manager 9 jazzes up music management

You don't have to be a hard-core audiophile to appreciate Helium Music Manager, but music fans with will get the most out of this application. This music organizer and player that helps you stay on top of extensive collections of files. It features an attractive design, but sometimes it's just a bit harder to use than it should be.

Helium Music Manager features a wizard that makes it easy to add music files.

I like how easy Helium Music Manager makes getting started: Launch the application, and it displays a wizard that lets you select which files you'd like to add to its music library. The process is quick, though adding thousands of files obviously takes a bit of time.

Once your files are available through Helium, you can see its organizational features at work. Chief among them is Helium's tag editor, which lets you work with individual files or batches, to speed things along. Casual users may be overwhelmed with how many options there are for tagging audio files, but music aficionados will appreciate the choices.

The application lets you monitor its progress as it adds music files. Unfortunately, many of Helium's other management features are not available in the free version. You have to upgrade to either the $29 Premium or $49 Network (up to 5 users) versions to take advantage of the features that allow you to analyze and repair MP3 and FLAC files, and locate and manage duplicate files. Rival MediaMonkey offers this kind of de-duping feature in its free version.

Helium makes syncing with mobile devices more complicated than it should be. Helium proved more difficult to sync with mobile devices than MediaMonkey. That application synced easily with both an iPhone and an Android phone. Helium, meanwhile, made the process disappointingly cumbersome, requiring that I choose a folder on the phone into which I'd like to transfer the music—and it didn't let me specify exactly which music to tranfer. A more automated, streamlined syncing process would go a long way toward increasing Helium's appeal.

Helium Music Manager Premium does offer additional features that make it worth the upgrade for heavy users, including the Music Browser, which allows you to browse through your music collection in different ways. It displays lists of recently played files, top artists of the week, and tag clouds that let you see visual representations of artists and genres. It's a neat way to find new music that might otherwise be buried in your collection.

Helium's design is attractive and modern. I like Helium Music Manager 9's design. Its slick black and fuschia look is appealing and modern. But I do wish the application itself were easier to use and that more of its features were available in the free version.

Liane Cassavoy is a veteran technology and business journalist. She contributes regularly to PCWorld and has written about business issues and products for Entrepreneur Magazine and other publications. She is the author of two business start-up guides published by Entrepreneur Press.
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Review: iPod Copy Master can't master music management

iPod Copy Master $20.00 iPod Copy Master will help you copy music from your iOS device to your PC, but be prepared for an unattractive design and a higher price tag than that of its competitors.

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Copying music from your iOS device to your PC is not as easy as it should be, thanks to the limitations of iTunes. Neither is it made much easier with iPod Copy Master, a $20 application that promises to streamline the task. Fortunately, its rivals do a better job.

The free version of iPod Copy Master is so limited as to be almost useless.

iPod Copy Master sounds promising, as it offers to transfer 1,000 songs from your iPod, iPhone, or iPad to your PC in less than 30 minutes, and touts its ability to copy playlists and ratings back to your PC, too. But you'll have to hand over $20 to access any of those features, as the free version is so limited as to be almost useless. It allows you to copy only one track from your iPod to your PC, and not just one track at a time—one track only.

iPod Copy Master's default skin is supposed to resemble wood, but it's neither realistic nor appealing.

iPod Copy Master also sports a design that looks as though it's supposed to resemble wood, but comes no closer to real wood than those station wagons with faux-wood panels on the side that you used to see back in the 1980s. You can change the skin, but the only other option in the free version sports a black background with white text, which quickly irritated my eyes.

The black design is more attractive, but it made my eyes hurt.

And, really, even a more appealing color scheme can't help iPod Copy Master. This application has the basics covered, as it easily detects an attached iOS device, and quickly pulls up its contents on your PC's screen. And I like that you can choose between transferring the music only to a folder on your desktop or doing that and syncing with iTunes. But that's about it.

I would be more willing to overlook iPod Copy Master's flaws if the free version offered more functionality. At $20, iPod Copy Master costs the same as CopyTrans, a more full-featured iOS management tool that allows you to copy files from your iPod to your PC. CopyTrans also offers a free version that lets you transfer 250 tracks at a time. And SynciOS offers files transfers and more iOS management tools for free…in an application that looks better than iPod Copy Master.

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Review: CopyTrans makes iOS management easy

iTunes is a great tool for managing the content of your iPhone or iPad—if you can live with all of its limitations and restrictions. Like the fact that it stores your files where it wants to, and only where it wants to. And the fact that it's a resource hog. Enter CopyTrans, a useful $20 utility that puts you more in control of managing your iOS content on your Windows PC.

CopyTrans installs as part of WindSolutions's CopyTrans Suite, which includes several different applications for managing various parts of your iOS experience, such as CopyTrans Contacts and CopyTrans Photo. While it's called a suite, you purchase the applications you want individually. All of the applications include a free demo version; you can try any of them and buy the ones you like. (Note that the free version of CopyTrans limits your transfers to 100 tracks.)

CopyTrans lets you browse the contents of your iOS device, sorting it by type, genre, artist, or album.

WindSolutions bills CopyTrans as an "Easy iPhone Backup" solution, and, indeed, this application does allow you to backup some of your iPhone (and iPod and iPad) content to your computer. But its focus is solely on music, videos, apps, and playlists. It does not backup contacts or photos; you'll have to purchase a separate part of the CopyTrans Suite to accomplish that.

CopyTrans sports a basic but functional interface. It automatically detects a connected iOS device and catalogs its audio and video content. CopyTrans has two main features: Smart Backup and Manual Backup. A Smart Backup is completely automated, as it offers a one-click way to make sure all of the content on your iOS device is synced with your iTunes library. It does this quickly (transferring 233 tracks took just a few minutes) and without creating duplicate files. This can be a handy way to make sure the content you have added to your iPod or iPhone is saved in iTunes, too, whether that's because your iTunes library was lost or you're using another computer.

The Manual Backup option gives you more control over the results. You can use this feature to sync only selected contents to iTunes, or you backup the contents of your iOS device to another location on your computer. Doing this creates a location from which you can play back your tunes and videos with your favorite media player, which doesn't have to be iTunes. While CopyTrans lists your content and lets you sort it by genres, artists, albums, or playlists, it's not a media player, and doesn't allow you to play back content itself.

CopyTrans lacks some of the features found in Mobiledit, a $25 application that could be considered its rival. But where Mobiledit allows you to peruse all of the contents of your mobile phone (including iPhones) using a Windows Explorer-like folder structure, CopyTrans focuses strictly on audio, video, and apps. And you wouldn't really consider CopyTrans an iTunes rival, as it's not a comprehensive tool for transferring content between your PC and iOS device. But CopyTrans is a worthy sidekick to iTunes, as it offers more control over your iOS content than Apple's software delivers.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.

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Review: CopyTrans Photo offers pricey iPhone photo management

With each new iPhone, Apple has improved its picture-taking capabilities. So much so that many folks now rely on an iPhone as their primary picture-taking device. iTunes, however, just hasn't kept up. While Apple's software excels as a tool for managing your iOS apps, music, and videos, it treats your photos like an afterthought. Sure, it lets you sync photos from your computer to your iOS device, but it doesn't offer any help in downloading the pictures you capture with your iPhone, nor previews of your pictures. That's exactly what CopyTrans Photos does. This application is pricey, at $20, but it does offer a decent tool for managing the photos you capture with your iPhone or iPad.

CopyTrans Photos installs as part of WindSolutions's CopyTrans Suite, which includes several different applications for managing various parts of your iOS experience, such as CopyTrans and CopyTrans Contacts. While it's called a suite, you purchase the applications you want individually. All of the applications include a free demo version; you can try any of them and buy the ones you like. (The free demo of CopyTrans Photos limits you to 20 transfers.)

CopyTrans Photo displays the photos from your iOS device on the left and the photos from the designated PC folder on the right.

CopyTrans Photos launches in a full-screen window that features two main columns, one of which displays thumbnails of the photos on your connected iOS device and another that displays thumbnails of the photos on your Windows PC. A third, smaller column displays the Explorer view, which shows the folder structure of your PC, allowing you to navigate to more photos.

Transferring photos between your computer and iOS device is as easy as right clicking on any of the thumbnails and choosing the transfer option. The only hiccup I encountered was when my iPhone display column was set to display the contents of my "Camera Roll" instead of my "Photo Library" (tabs at the top of the column let you switch between these views). CopyTrans Photos will not let you add photos from your computer to your iOS Camera Roll; you have to add them to the Photo Library instead.

You can create an album on your iOS device and add photos to it, and you can sync individual photos or entire albums between the two devices. CopyTrans Photos does not offer any sort of photo editing tools, but it does include a slideshow option, which allows you to sit back and watch a collection of photos on your PC's screen.

CopyTrans Photo is not cheap, and I wish that it included at least some basic photo editing tools for its price. And I wish it automated the process of importing new photos from your phone to your PC by offering a Synch feature. As it stands, the process is a bit convoluted: you have to create a new folder in the Explorer View column of CopyTrans Photos, then select all of the photos from your iPhone and copy them to that folder. And CopyTrans Photo did not allow me to delete any photos from my iPhone's camera roll. Importing my iPhone photos via Windows itself is far more streamlined, and allows me to delete the photos, too. For $20, CopyTrans Photos should make that process—and more—a whole lot easier.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.

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MojoMotor: Easy-to-Use Website Content Management System

Here is a problem both website designers and owners share: Once a website is created, who has to update its content over time? And how should they do it? The traditional solution for this problem is a CMS, or content management system, such as WordPress (aimed mainly at blogs) or Weebly. MojoMotor is one such content management system, but it prides itself on "doing less" and providing a lightweight interface both for developers and content editors.

MojoMotor's installation interface is stylish, but requires familiarity with database configuration settings.For a content editor, MojoMotor can't be much simpler to use: There is no administrative backend to log in to, or a complex workflow with multiple page states and drafts. You do need to log in so that MojoMotor knows you're allowed to edit, but once that's done, the only special bit of interface you see is a toolbar on top of the screen. The rest of your browser window contains your website just like everyone sees it, but with one important difference: You can edit the text and images.

MojoMotor features an easy WYSIWYG editor for website text.While you're viewing the website in MojoMotor's administration interface, certain parts of the page (such as its main content area, usually) are marked as editable and highlighted in color. To edit, just click anywhere in the highlighted area, and it morphs into a WYSIWYG editor with a simple toolbar for formatting text, creating links, and uploading images. You don't need to know HTML, Markdown, or any other special syntax. You do need to make sure that any images you upload are in the correct size for the website.

The default theme provided with MojoMotor looks a bit like a basic WordPress installation.MojoMotor is easy to use for designers, too. To design a website in MojoMotor, you don't have to know PHP: MojoMotor websites are created as static HTML files with special MojoMotor tags that the system uses to make certain areas user editable. This makes MojoMotor an ideal tool for front-end designers who can create great layouts, HTML, and CSS, but don't know the first thing about back-end coding and working with PHP.

Behind the scenes, MojoMotor works by using special tags.MojoMotor is not a one-size-fits-all solution: It is clearly aimed at small websites containing just a handful of pages. The system doesn't even include a built-in blogging engine, but third-party website MojoAddons offers a plug-in, MojoBlog, that lets users create a blog within their MojoMotor installation. Fortunately, MojoMotor makes it very easy to migrate your project to ExpressionEngine, a CMS from the same vendor that can easily support large-scale websites.

Because MojoMotor focuses on a specific use case and doesn't try to please everyone, it succeeds in creating a truly simple way to develop and maintain small personal and business websites. Its reasonable price tag and extensibility add to its allure, as well.

--Erez Zukerman

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Online Reputation Management: Advice, Tips, and Tools

While deciding on a name for your company, be sure to consider the availability of a domain name that matches your business, abilities, skills or identity. You want to get a URL name as close to your company name as possible. If you’re called Synergy, you don’t want your URL to be www.thesynergybusinessonline1234.com. Bloated or misleading URL names complicate your online identity and viewers will find difficulty navigating to your website.

In the best-case scenario, you will be able to secure a domain name that begins with your company name and ends in a .com or a country-specific suffix such as .ca or .eu. Once you’ve done that, it’s also a good idea to register the .xxx version of your domain so it can’t be used against you in the future. An adult entertainment site under the same name as your lifestyle blog is definitely something you want to avoid.

Be sure the name you wish to protect is available on such popular social-sharing sites as Facebook and Twitter. Don’t make the same mistake that Netflix did when they announced their new (and now defunct) company, Qwikster. Someone else had already claimed the Twitter handle @Qwikster (pictured) and was proudly displaying a pot-smoking Elmo in its profile photo. 

The key is to link your social networks to your website and remain active on each network. Regular activity ensures that your users know exactly where to look for official updates and information.

If you have a personal Facebook account, don’t forget to configure your privacy settings so that only friends will be able to search your account. If you have nothing to hide, then continue to post appropriate content consistently.

Don’t wait for someone else to post information about your company. Instead, start the conversation on your own. Posting information about yourself or your company on a regular basis will help ensure that online readers are finding content that you crafted and approved.

Having your own website is the best way to make sure people are reading accurate information before anything else that may be written about you or your company. Google favors fresh content, so make sure you post often, even if it’s just a minor update. The more you post original content, the higher up in search results you will move. As long as you are generating your own content, a Google search should display your own articles before others when your chosen name is searched.

You can use 123people.com (pictured) and PeekYou.com to see what photos and videos (along with email addresses and other information) are connected to your name online. The websites display the information in an easy-to-read format with clearly labelled sections. The searches are done on a first- and last-name basis, but PeekYou also lets you search usernames. Both services are good resources to turn to, as they offer fairly comprehensive results in only a few seconds. 

You can’t address any problems or threats to your company’s reputation if you don’t know what’s being said about you.

1. Google Alerts: Google Alerts can be your best friend. It’s simple to set up. All you have to do is visit www.google.com/alerts and fill out the required information. Just enter your search query (in this case your business name). Then choose the result type (News, Blogs, Video, Discussions, Books or Everything). Choosing Everything will yield the most complete results. From there, you can choose how often Google checks for new listings, how many results to show you (choose all of them) and what email address to use for receiving alerts. Once you’ve set up an alert for your company name, go ahead and do the same for your Twitter handle and other usernames.

2. Reputation.com: Sign up at www.reputation.com to stay informed about what is being said about you on the Internet. The website will perform an in-depth search of your or your company’s name for free. This service will also monitor your personal data on the Web and alert you whenever your search phrase is mentioned online. 

One advantage to Reputation.com versus Google Alerts is the ability to rate any links to your name as either positive, negative or neutral. If a link is marked positive, Reputation.com will start promoting the link. The opposite is true if a link is marked negative. If a link is marked neutral, nothing is done.

Also included with your account is MyPrivacy, a service that searches databases that cater specifically to people in order to inform you of what personal information (addresses, phone numbers, etc.) is readily available. Reputation.com also has a paid version called ReputationDefender that offers even more comprehensive options when dealing with your online presence. The extras don’t comecheap, however, running anywhere from $129 to $699 per year. But unless you’ve got a really messy past, the free version should suffice.

Quick Tip: If you are using such services as Reputation.com and Google Alerts, be sure to search any online aliases that you use, as these will always surface and find their way back to the real you.

3. Rhino360: Start at www.reputationrhino.com to sign up for this free monitoring service. You’ll receive daily, weekly or monthly reports identifying who is talking about your keywords, where they are and what they’re saying. The service reportedly checks more than 1 million online sources including blogs, video, photo sharing sites, social networkings and discussion boards. The report, which can be sent as text, HTML or Excel files, breaks down whether the comments are positive, negative or neutral.

4. Technorati: Use www.technorati.com (a popular blog aggregator) to subscribe to searches for your business name. The site also ranks various websites in different categories so you can get a feel for how you stack up against the competition. It does take a bit of work to authenticate your website (you need to prove that you actually run it), but it’s worth the extra effort. 

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