Of course I don't mean "hack" in the bad sense. This page is about the plugins, modifications, and tricks I've found to improve the operation of WordPress. In some cases, it's stuff that they didn't think about. In some cases, they made decisions about program behavior that I don't agree with. In either case, I've found that when I need a fix, but can't find it online already, there's plenty of other people who need it to. So here you go; enjoy!

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Maybe this has been around a while, but it's the first time I've seen it. There are utilities to unlock files that Windows won't let you delete because they are "in use".

The main suggestion in the article is a free utility called "unlocker" which will probably work well for normal users and I might add it to my list of tools for that reason. However, a commenter said that the Process Explorer utility will let you find the exact program that's using that file so you can close just it instead of unlocking every process at once.

Once I've experimented with them, I'll have one or the other on my tools page. Until then, feel free to go to the article and check it out yourself.

Keeping to yourself is not a crime.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

I don't support criminals, but evading forensics is also about privacy, not just breaking the law. For those with the interest and skill, check out the article for some tools used to evade detection of things you'd rather keep hidden. Here are some of them:

• Timestomp – Destroys the timestamp evidence of files on your computer. Probably not something you'd want to run willy-nilly.
• Transmogrify – Hide files by making them seem like other file types. For example, you have that picture of you in Tahiti, but you don't want someone who steals your computer to know it's there. Make it look like a text document.
• Slacker – Breaks a file up and hides it in the free space at the end of other files. This could be very dangerous to use because if those files change, your hidden file could be destroyed. I'd be curious to see how this works in practice.
• KY – Puts files into null directories. Most tools won't know the directory is there so your files will be hidden. This one has potential for home use. If I try it and it's good, I'll post it in my tools section.