If you liked the idea, discussed in the original article, you'll love to hear this. Have you tried Console 2.00.133? Have you noticed that sometimes when you open another tab, it comes up either completely blank or with some garbage characters? It's now gone! Finally! Well... at least, Marko and I hope for that very much.

But... the bigger news is Console is now fully localizable, и вполне сносно говорит по-русски. If you don't yet speak Russian, please, Read More. По крайней мере, я очень старался и надеюсь, что перевод, предлагаемый Вашему вниманию ниже, будет лучше, чем у Altavista или у Online-переводчика PROMT (попробуйте перевести фразу "Windows application has a tray icon" на world.altavista.com или translate.ru и сравните с "У Windows-приложения есть значок в области уведомлений").

Как и в прошлый раз, версия, предлагаемая Вашему вниманию, является неофициальной. Все "заплатки", реализующие новые функции доступны на Sourceforge, но еще не интегрированы в официальные исходники. Отличия от Console 2.00 Beta, build 137:

• Говорит по-русски
  Если у Вас русская версия Windows, то при запуске весь интерфейс будет русским. Если по какой-то причине этого не произошло, то можно установить переменную окружения LANG=ru и попробовать еще раз.
  Если Вам не понравился наш с Виталием перевод, то можно установить LANG=en, и Console проигнорирует язык Windows
• Наиболее используемые пункты меню добавлены в системное меню (то, которое, открывается если щелкнуть на иконку в заголовке окна, оно же доступно по Alt+Пробел)
  Этой заплатки нет еще на Sourceforge - все никак не дойдут руки
• Размер шрифта можно менять с помощью мышиного колесика
  Новый размер сохраняется до выхода из программы или до открытия диалога настроек

Вам понадобится:

• Официальная версия с Sourceforge
• Console 2.0.137
• Если хотите, мои настройки

И в заключении, спасибо dimich22 за статью на OSZone.net!

As the last time, I decided to produce an unofficial build. The differences from the official Console 2.00 Beta, build 137:

• Fully localizable, Russian is included
  You want to try? Set an environment variable LANG=ru
• Most useful menu items are added to the system menu, accessible by clicking the icon in the window title or with Alt+Space shortcut
• Support for Ctrl+Mouse Wheel to temporarily change the font size
  The new font size is not saved permanently and will be lost on exit or on opening the Settings... dialog

Here what you need to try it out:

• Console 2.0.137
• Settings, used by yours truly, if you want
  You will need to rename the file to just "console.xml".

Again, this is unofficial build. Do not ask Marko about the build. But if you're interested in any of the above features, please, feel free to chime in in the feature requests [ 1692653 ] Strings to resources (aka i18n, aka l10n) or [ 1733641 ] Hotkey to resize fonts

Well... If you are not going to tell me, then my congratulations! Just don't fall into the same trap as people at London's Waterloo Station and at least pretend that you don't like chocolate.

Seriously, the real title should be "How do you pronounce your password?".

It all started some time ago (in 2001 to be precise). It was a middle of Internet bubble and all kinds of companies offered all kinds of services for free. The problem was (no, not that it ended few months later) they all required passwords. So, what? Can't I just reuse the same password? Well, no, this is a very bad idea even if the password is very strong. Can't I just use browser's capabilities to remember my passwords? Well, no, it's just as bad idea as the previous one. So, the solution I found was: pronounceable passwords. Some may say that even better solution is pass phrases, but up until nowadays not every company would allow you to use funny, catchy, not-so-evident, but 30 characters long password. What is even worse is that some companies enforce weak passwords (no, it's not a typo - they do limit your password to something like 6 lowercase letters and numbers, but no special symbols or even capital letters).

The best implementation I found was written by Tom Van Vleck. If you would go to his Tools & Java section, you'll find a very educational story about how it all started in 1970s (it's on Java version of Pronounceable passwords)

What I did not liked about that password generator is that I had to come up with ways to make the password stronger. There are few ways to do that:

• Capitalize some letters
• Add digits at random locations
• Add non-alphanumeric characters

So, instead of doing it manually each time I need yet another password, I modified his Java code to do it for me [and learned some more Java along the way]. I even had a web site where I published it (however I forgot the credentials to that free hosting provider, which, by the way, disappeared later).

A recent conversation at the office brought the idea of publishing my version of Pronounceable Password Generator back to life again. After some minor modifications (caused by slightly better Java skills), please, welcome GPW 2007 Edition!

If you have Internet Explorer 6 or 7 and JavaScript is enabled, you should not need to "activate" the applet. Otherwise, blame Eolas.

Feel free to download source code (it's actually .java file) or JAR version for offline use from command line.

Some tips to use the generator (you may call them "good password tips"):

• generate as long passwords as you can remember
• capitalize some letters
• use digits
• use non-alphanumeric characters
  one way to do that is to type digits with Shift key pressed; another way is to use N'th key among non-alphanumeric keys, for example, number each key in the sequence "`-=[]\;',." and when generator says "m2ighw5a" type "m=ighw\a"
• if you're a Windows user, you may not know that your password is actually limited to 14 characters, case-insensitive and stored as two passwords 7-characters long each, hence
  make sure that your password is at least 8 characters long and each half contains some special (non-lowercase-letter) symbol
  Yes, I know, it may not be true since about Windows 2000 in a corporate (domain) environment. But even then, it may still be true.
• if you need an all-digits PIN, you can specify an alphabet as 22233344455566677778889999 and then spend some time trying to find how to pronounce it

And one last thing. Do not write down your passwords ever! If you have one [thousand] too many passwords to remember, like yours truly, get yourself a password manager. What's the best one? Oh, that's another story... One idea is to use your cell phone.

No, I'm not talking about a safe in a bank. I'm talking about Safe 1.27 by KeyCriteria on Motorola RAZR v3i with iTunes.

It all began one morning (or night). I was exploring my new cell phone and found a password manager in Games & Apps. The first thing this midlet did, after I accepted the license agreement, is asked for a password and a hint. I entered somewhat easy-to-remember word and quit the app. The second time I tried to open Safe, it asked me for the password and oops... I could not type it in. Most likely, when I entered the password the first time I did not pay enough attention to what is really happening - remember, one button on phone's keyboard represents several letters (and if you have iTap or T9...) The help screen of the Safe kindly informed me that I can't reset the password. So, here I was... with a brand new phone, at least one function of which is inaccessible.

So, this morning I decided to deal with the issue. There are two ways: just remove the application (throw away the safe, see step 7 below) and forget about it; or try to find a way to fix it. After very short search, Geoffrey Sy's notepad shed some light on how to do the latter. However, I found the instructions to be not precise enough for general public, given that yours truly, who considers himself "computer- and gadget-literate", spent most of the afternoon trying to follow them. Hence, this is my version [to save you installing and uninstalling Motorola USB drivers, UID Extraction tool and Mobile Phone Tools].

Now, for those, concerned with warranty and making a light-weight paper weight from your phone. The below procedure does not void anything, as far as I can tell, and is very safe, provided:

• you do NOT play with settings (there are a lot of them in the Manager);
• you do NOT try to use your phone while saving or restoring the Safe (you might want to enable unconditional forwarding of all calls to your voice mail, charge the phone, even though it's supposed to be charging when connected to the computer, and press Hang Up button several time before connecting to the computer);
• your phone is supported by the Manager (v3i with iTunes is).

And as usual, I can not be held liable for any damages to your computer or any of your property caused by or in connection with this instructions, even if you advise me on a possibility of such a damage.

1. Install the phone drivers on your computer if you haven't done so already. I guess you can use Motorola USB Driver, but I had drivers installed so the rest worked for me even after I uninstalled the package.
2. Download and unpack the Moto MIDlets Manager by Alexander Kuznetsov.

   Update December 3rd: the main site is in Russian, but Alexander kindly allowed me to host a translated mirror.

   Special thanks to Alexander for not requiring to install the fine application [and having its icons all over the desktop, Start menu, Quick Launch, Add & Remove Programs, My Documents, his documents and all other seemingly unrelated to cell phones places].

3. Connect your phone to the computer with the USB cable
   If you do it the first time, some driver installation might happen.
4. Run the Moto MIDlets Manager. Important: you have to run it as Administrator, otherwise it will not detect your phone.

   If you are not sure what "run as Administrator" means, here is a quick checklist:

   • if you got a computer with Windows XP and never went to User Accounts, you're ok;
   • if you connected the phone to the computer, some installation happened, but the Manager does not recognize your phone, you are likely not ok;
   • if you can't change Date and Time, you are not ok;
5. After Moto MIDlets Manager detects your phone - and the status changes to "connected" - you will see the applets, installed on your phone, on the Phone memory tab. That's where your Safe is likely located. If not, try to find it on Trans-Flash tab.
6. Save the Safe applet to your hard drive (I assume that even an average "general public" can figure that out, thanks to Alexander).
7. Disconnect your phone from the computer, go to Games & Apps in the menu, select Safe, go to the menu and Delete it. You will need to confirm that you want to delete the app and its data [which is useless anyway].
   Note that you can do it from MIDlets Manager, but I prefer to use standard tools.
8. Connect your phone to the computer. MIDlets Manager will rediscover your phone and show you installed applets. Hopefully, Safe will not be among them.
9. Do not go to the Games & Apps. Stay on the home screen (you can even press Hang Up button several times to be sure). Now you can install JAD file of the Safe.
10. Restart the phone. If you try to close the Manager, you will be reminded to restart any way.

That's it. You've just got a new safe! Be Safe!

Thank you, Geoffrey! Thank you, Alexander!

Just to let you know that if you don't have an account on MotoDev and don't plan to develop anything for Motorola phones, you might find BugMeNot very useful.