(Mostly) Free Tools

Password Protect PDFs

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/07/26 20:43 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, Business Processes, Tech Tips  |  Comments (1)

We’ve all done it…we’ve sent an attachment to an e-mail that contains information which shouldn’t be ‘shared’ with the public. Think documents which contain passwords or social security numbers or things of that nature. Maybe it’s a contract that has sensitive information. It could be pretty much ANYTHING that you don’t really want to share with the world. There have been times that I’ve hit ‘send’ then said ‘Ohhhh…I shouldn’t have sent that out there where it could be intercepted’. Other times, I didn’t give it a thought…just sent it. Sometimes (and I’m ashamed to admit this), I’ve known better, but cross my fingers and hope that no ‘mischievous’ person or computer will intercept it along the way.

Why didn’t I make a habit of sending things ‘protected’? Because I didn’t have a tool that was inexpensive which would allow me to password protect the files. I’ve written before (Creating PDFs for Free) about getting AND USING a PDF writer for documents which you don’t want altered (think contracts, financial calculations, etc.). While PDF’s prevent people from changing the contents of a document, ANYONE who has access to the PDF file can open/review it. Not necessarily good.

So, how to deal with this and become a better cyber-citizen? After you’ve created your PDF file, PASSWORD PROTECT IT!! How? Glad you asked!

There is a WONDERFUL site called PDFProtect (http://www.pdfprotect.net/)…and it couldn’t be EASIER…SERIOUSLY!!!

Simply go to pdfprotect.net. You’ll see this screen (click the image to enlarge):

Browse to the PDF that you want to protect.
Enter the password that you want to use for that file.
Click “Protect”.
You’re done.

This screen will appear – the protected file will be saved to your computer immediately:

Double-click in your downloads:

You will be challenged for the password (as will anyone who tries to open this document):

There you go! You can e-mail the document with peace-of-mind. Now, there’s no excuse for sending unsecured documents!!!

Move over OpenOffice.org, Kingsoft Office Suite has arrived

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/07/05 01:00 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, General, Tech Tips  |  Comments (5)

One of the most expensive pieces of software that I have on my laptop is Microsoft Office. I consider it invaluable…but I use it – intensely – each and every day. Many people don’t. Many people view/manage their email through webmail or on their smartphone. Others don’t work with Spreadsheets or Word documents very often, if at all. Some only make an occasional presentation. In other words, for many people the cost up to $499 for the Professional version (which includes Outlook and Access) is too steep of a price to pay…yet most people need SOME word processing, spreadsheet and/or presentation software at some point in time. Are you going to invest a minimum of $150 for the pleasure? Probably not.

For many people, the OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org) suite of software has been the ‘go to’ software for their occasional foray into desktop productivity for quite a while. OpenOffice is a true ‘suite’ of applications…containing modules named Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math. While I’ve always considered OpenOffice a great alternative to Microsoft Office, I feel like it doesn’t run terribly efficiently. It can take quite a while to open up OpenOffice and makes my computer sluggish. In fact, to my untrained eye, it appears that it actually opens ALL of the apps, even if you’re only trying to work in one of them.

For years, it was really the only viable alternative to Office…but now there is a new player in the F-R-E-E software arena – Kingsoft Office Suite (www.kingsoftstore.com).

Kingsoft has three modules: Writer, Presentation and Spreadsheets. Unlike OpenOffice.org, there is no database component or image editing. Kingsoft is the basics in terms of offering, but not in terms of features. When you open one of the programs up, unless you’re paying close attention, you’d think that you were in Microsoft-land (click on any of the images to see a larger image):

WRITER

SPREADSHEET

PRESENTATION

Kingsoft seems to open/save documents with standard Microsoft extensions flawlessly. The installation is fast and easy. The system resources consumed by the products seem minimal. All-in-all, a FABULOUS alternative to Microsoft Office for people who don’t want to invest the money or don’t use Office frequently enough to justify the expense. Now, when your high school friend sends you a spreadsheet of all your classmates for the upcoming reunion, you won’t have to say ‘sorry, I can’t open that’!

Can’t wait to download and install it? Here’s the link: www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html

Create Your Own PDF Forms – you know…fill in the blanks

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/06/23 14:54 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, Tech Tips  |  Comments (13)

PDF documents are pretty ubiquitous. Many of us who work in offices see them every day. Most times, they are just text, or text and images. Someone saved a Word document into a PDF format, so it can’t be edited, but can be read by everyone (well, everyone who has a PDF reader – and that’s most of us).

Sometimes, a PDF document is really a form that the user can complete/return. Some of them are just a form to print out (you can’t fill out the information on the computer). Some of them are interactive – that is, you can fill in the information right on the computer screen, then print/email the document. That’s kind of cool if you’re asking someone for information in a specified format. Making someone print out a ‘static’ PDF (one where you can’t fill in the blanks) requires them to fill in the entries by hand, scan the document back in so they can email it to you, or send you the printed out copy. If you send them a regular Word document (so they can fill it out on the computer), they can change things up – leaving the original formatting useless. If it’s a contract or other ‘official’ document, they could change the terms and return it to you and you might not even notice!

So, I would LOVE to have an inexpensive tool where I could create ‘interactive’ PDF documents, but it wouldn’t cost me a fortune. I don’t spend my life doing things like that…I only do it once in a great while.

I always thought that the only way to create these ‘form’ PDF’s was to have the full-blown Adobe Acrobat product (cost at time of this writing – $449.00 on Adobe’s site). I don’t know about you, but that’s NOT a price that I can stomach. I need to create PDF forms occasionally. When I’ve had the need, I’ve tended to just created Word documents and hope for the best. Now, I’ve found a new program that allows me to create Form PDFs for FREE – YEAH!! The promised land!

In the past, we’ve covered creating a ‘normal’ PDF document with a free PDF writer (http://www.yourtechtamer.com/blog/2010/12/creating-pdfs-for-free/, however, this was just to turn a ‘normal’ document on your computer into a PDF – its not ‘interactive’.

Welcome PDFescape! I’m so glad that we found you!!! To quote from their website (www.pdfescape.com), “PDFescape is a free service. Users of PDFescape can upload files to view them, modify them, form fill them, and even create new forms. No logo, watermark, or other tag is added to your file. PDFescape is truly free.” Hip-hip-hooray!!!

Let’s see what it’s like (click image for larger view):

First, there is NO SIGNON required. If you want to save your documents to PDFEscape’s site, then you need to create a signon, but otherwise, it is an ‘open’ world!

This document took me under 5 minutes to create – and I had never looked at how to do this before now.

You simply click on one of the types of information you want to put on your PDF (I’ll click on ‘text’):

Then you click on your blank document and start typing. When you’re done, click the yellow bar to disable and move onto the next item. Click on images and you can upload images to your document. Form-fields are a snap:

There are five (count ’em FIVE) types of form-fields you can add: Text, Checkbox, Radio button, Drop-down, or Listbox. I added a text field and a drop-down. For the drop-down, I created several selections.

In order to make the choices for the drop-down field, I had to right-click on the field I had inserted and select ‘Properties’:

Then, I just typed in the values that I wanted the user to see (DE, NJ, PA, NY):

When I was done ‘creating’ my entire document, I simply hit this button:

and I was able to download/save the document to my local computer.

Remember, I never created a signon, so when I finished my ‘virtual’ work, I had to save it somewhere! (If I’d created an account, I could have saved the file online).

What were the results?

I could then send this document to anyone to complete…here’s what a completed form looks like:

Now, all that anyone needs to do is print it to a PDF and email it back to me! I have a lovely, consistent, legible form to work from. HOORAY!!!

Legitimate Internet Threat – July 9th – You COULD lose your internet connection…

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/05/27 14:26 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, General, Tech Tips  |  Comments (6)

There is so much misinformation on the internet and about the internet, that sometimes it is hard to tell truth from fiction. This time, rumors that you might lose your internet connection on July 9th, 2012 ARE LEGITIMATE!!!! The more technical description circulating about this malware is ‘DNS Changer’ (which means nothing to most non-technical people).

FEAR NOT, however, as there is a way to check and a way to correct, should your computer be infected.

Background: Back on November 8, 2011, the FBI arrested a group who was using a botnet (one type of method for computer infection) to ‘hijack’ users computers. This group was known as “Rove Digital” and was wrecking havoc in computers across the world. If you’re like me, you ask, “So, if the FBI arrested the bad guys back in November, what do I have to worry about on July 9th”. In laymen’s term, here is what happened:

Something called a ‘DNS’ takes part in every internet search you do, or every connection you make through the internet. The user friendly URL’s that you enter into your browser (e.g. www.google.com) or search results you click use a DNS to translate the user-friendly URL into techno-babble. An analogy is that a street address is translated by your GPS into longitude and lattitude coordinates. Similarly, the internet uses DNS to translate from a URL that you and I understand, to a computer server’s technical address, and delivers you to that site.

The bad guys injected half a million computers with malware that would redirect you from the destination you WANTED when you enter information in the URL to some other location giving you false results on your screen that LOOKED legitimate. In other words, they gave you an alternate view of the internet universe. WHY? To make money from advertising…illegitimately…among other things.

The FBI and others not only uncovered and arrested thieves, but went one step further in making sure that the ‘bad’ servers (the ones that infected machines are directed to) were replaced with ‘good’ servers (clean ones that the Internet Gods control). So, since November, any computers infected with the malicious code have been getting ‘good’ results. In other words, infected machines have been re-routed to the correct web sites according to their searches and URL’s clicked. Infected machines display no ‘symptoms’.

Sounds good, right? Well, here’s the rub. On July 9th, 2012, these replacement servers are BEING TAKEN OUT OF SERVICE. What does this mean to you? If your computer is infected, then your computer will be unable to figure out which website you’re trying to get to when you open up your browser, and you will be in an internet blackout. The idea is that during the time between November 2011 and July 2012, people could carefully mitigate the evil infection without an unplanned outage. Unfortunately, if you don’t check, you might still find yourself with an ‘unplanned outage’.

FIND OUT NOW IF YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED!!! Go to http://www.dcwg.org/detect/ (it just takes a second) and find a link with which to conduct a test. If you’re clean, you will have no issue on July 9th. If, however, your computer returns infected, follow the directions on the trusted sites (you can get there through either of the links below) and clean it before July 9th.

(More info here or here or here)

Over time “Rove Digital” infected over 500,000 computers – INCLUDING APPLE COMPUTERS!!! Better safe than sorry!!!

Apple device owners beware…you may not be as safe as you think from malicious hackers

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/05/01 22:15 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, General, Tech Tips  |  Comments (5)

I finally have what I lovingly refer to as my first ‘iThing’. Yes, I was among those who got the latest iPad (mind you, NOT called the iPad 3, but still, it is the 3rd generation of the iPad). And technically, this isn’t my first iThing…it is my 3rd. I have owned two iPods (one currently still in service), and not newer than about the year 2003, so I think its safe to say that this is my first iThing of the modern era of iThings. My iPod is the ‘classic’ design (‘classic’ being a better term than ‘old’). So, it was with great anticipation that I waited for the UPS person to show up at my door on release day.

I thoroughly enjoy my iPad. Quite honestly, I haven’t explored all its capabilities, but I look forward to getting to know it, and its seemingly infinite array of apps. It certainly is handy! Love being able to slip it in a shoulder bag and hop on WiFi where I find it (I did NOT pay for the 4G version, though I may regret that down the road). Because I work on computers all day – and not just doing emails, etc., but coming up with technology solutions to business problems – I don’t have any interest in playing games, etc. I’m looking to use my iPad for office productivity solutions, so that will take some trial and error. Suggestions from you readers on ‘must have apps’ is welcome!

Anyway, I figured that if I am now in the world of (modern) Apple device owners, I should brush up on any protection software required for Apple products. I know that many people consider the Apple operating systems fairly bullet-proof and/or low on the radar, so that the ‘bad guys’ who spend their time writing malicious code just ignore it. In fact, in the Apple App Store, there are a couple of Apps out there which give INFORMATION on malware threats, but don’t actually provide protection to the iPad/iPhone. So, IT people might like them for alerting them to breaking threats which might be positioning for attack on their Microsoft based equipment, but the apps do NOT protect the ‘iThing’.

Hmmm…why, I ask? A little more searching found the explanations…all the apps install in their own ‘sandboxes’. In other words, each app is discreetly partitioned from the other apps. Therefore, an ‘iThing’ (either an iPod, iTouch or iPad) is inherently safer from attack than a traditional computer. As I understand it, data in one application is not accessible by other applications. In essence, each area is blockaded from other areas. Safari (the internet browser installed by default) or other browsers that you might install, would be the most susceptible to infiltration by ‘bad guys’ which might pick up (and steal) keystrokes, information, etc. as you type them. So, even on your ‘iThing’, use safe browsing techniques. Don’t surf the web carelessly when you’re on public WiFi.

What I found most interesting as I was reading up on Apple and susceptibility to infection was that the Mac platform is actually susceptible to infection by trojans (malicious software that gets installed without the computer owners knowledge). I found two recently published articles about the rise of vulnerability as the platform gains popularity – one in Forbes magazine and one in a technical site called CRN. Both say that there are over 600,000 infected Macs. The more people decide to leave the Microsoft world, the more the Mac system will get attacked.

Not to worry, however, as there is free software available to protect your Macintosh. Just head over to Sophos or ClamXav and download/install a free anti-malware tool. After all, while the threat of infection on a Mac is less than on a Windows machine, there is a chance – and that chance is increasing as the popularity of the Mac OS grows. Why not protect yourself?

Do not get fooled by fake anti-virus messages – and never, ever click unless you are sure!

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/04/21 21:40 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, Tech Tips  |  Comments (5)

I figure its rarely a good thing when the phone rings at 7am…particularly when it’s your cell phone (a number that most of your clients have for emergencies). Most people haven’t even had their coffee yet! Clients on the West Coast are still tucked in bed. Has to be an East-Coaster. Has to be a problem.

So began my Friday morning. I try to put on a chipper, pretend-post-caffeine voice as I answer. “Good morning, this is Sandy…(bright smile – well, trying for a bright smile – in my voice)”

The voice at the other end begins, “So I clicked on an email that LOOKED like it was from my friend, Joe, but when I opened it, the email was actually offering me prescription drugs via the internet. I don’t know why Joe sent it to me, but then a Microsoft message popped up from my toolbar telling me that my anti-virus is not operating, so I clicked on the ‘fix-it button’ and now I can’t open any icons on my desktop.”

My pre-caffeine brain was still waiting to hear ‘Hi’, but I realized that this was not going to be a relaxed conversation over a cup of coffee or cold-caffeine (Diet Pepsi being my caffeine of choice – even in the morning). This was a 911-type call because a machine was ‘down’. They needed help and they needed it NOW.

Quite truthfully, I’ll never know if a link in that email masquerading as coming from a friend was clicked, if a link on an infected website was clicked, or if the infection came via another route, but the FAKE anti-virus message was received and acted upon. The EVIL virus was launched and was trying to work its nefarious ways.

What does a fake Internet Security or Anti-virus message look like? Well, below are a couple of examples. Yes, these are FAKES!!!

So, why this message to all of you? To help you learn from others mistakes – how to recognize a fake Internet Security warning.

First, BEWARE OF ANTI-VIRUS/INTERNET SECURITY MESSAGES. Make sure that the message really comes from the anti-virus or internet security package you use. My client read the message to me, and it was a Windows message, but they use Norton. Giant warning flags. NEVER EVER follow a link/message from a software feature that you are NOT using. While this client uses a Windows platform, they do NOT use Window’s Internet Security. A neon DANGER, DANGER sign should have gone off in their heads.

Second, Google the message you’ve received to find out if that particular message has come up as a fake warning.

Third, close the questionable window and open up your Internet Security/Anti-Virus via that program’s interface (use the Start-Program menu). If your computer is really at risk, it will show up in that interface (e.g. the Norton or McAfee interface). If no ‘risk’ displays, then your computer is probably safe, but you still need to get rid of that errant warning. Keep on reading and follow the instructions below.

What happens if you mistakenly clicked somewhere and your computer is infected as my client’s was. Well, there are a couple of FREE tools which might help to solve your issues.

Download Malwarebytes (I use CNET.com or PCWorld.com for safe downloads).

Install, then launch Malwarebytes. Perform a scan.

Check “Perform Full Scan”, then “Scan”. Let it run. It could take several hours. Once it is done, if it found ‘cooties’ in your computer, Malwarebytes will offer to quarantine or fix the issues. Allow it to. Reboot your computer when it is all done. Click around…hopefully, all of your issues are solved.

Use this next tool in conjunction with Malwarebytes – in other words, run it after you’ve run Malwarebytes. CC Cleaner is another free computer fixing ‘friend’. Download and install this program.

Install, then launch CC Cleaner. You will need to run two different scans with this tool. Click on ‘Cleaner’, then ‘Run Cleaner’. When that completes, click on ‘Registry’, ‘Scan for Issues’, then allow CCCleaner to fix any registry related issues. Before allowing CCCleaner to fix issues, accept the offer to save a copy of your current registry (save it to your Desktop – you can delete it after a week or so, once you’re sure nothing ‘odd’ is happening).

These two programs, which contain a myriad of tools, are your BEST FRIEND when something goes awry on your computer. I always keep them installed on my machines, and use them as part of my normal housekeeping. Running them regularly will help you to catch issues that you may not even be aware exist on your computer.

And I beg of you…do NOT click on emails/links/websites of which you are unsure. Hover over links to see the REAL URL’s. Type in URL’s yourself into your web browser. Don’t open e-mails from friends that look ‘odd’. Instead, email your friend back (on a new email) and ask them if they had sent you an email with “Whatever” in the subject line…if they confirm, then its probably safe to open it.

I hope you don’t need to resort to these tools for more than maintenance.

How do I know if someone is talking about me on the web?

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/03/06 10:00 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, General, Tech Tips, Web Tips  |  Comments (2)

As “they” say, your reputation is everything. This includes your reputation among family, friends, colleagues, and now, what appears about you online. Yes, you need to make sure that you stay abreast of any information posted on the web about you.

Have you ever had the experience of having someone – maybe a casual friend or business acquaintance – call you out of the blue to congratulate you on the award that you just won, tell you ‘atta boy’ or ‘atta girl’ for a speaking engagement you just landed? As a former boss of mine used to say, “How do it know?” (please forgive the poor grammar, that’s a direct quote!). In this case you might be wondering, “How on earth did they find out already, I didn’t tell anyone/see anyone, etc.?”

Well, back-in-the-day, just a little after dinosaurs roamed the earth, there used to be services called ‘clipping services’. Companies paid handsomely for people to comb through various publications for mentions of the name of their company, mentions of the appearances of their top executives, etc. You paid by the number of periodicals you wanted reviewed, as well as, by the number of times those periodicals were published, plus the number of names/mentions you were searching.

I was always fascinated by this concept. Did one person read the same newspaper or magazine 100 times, each time with an eye out for a separate reference, or did they have an incredible memory and were able to scan the names/references that they needed to find, then read the publication once and picked up all the mentions – whether it was one or many? I still wonder. I could probably do a search and find out. If you want more information on “Clipping Services”, you can start with this Wikipedia link.

But I digress…Those services have sort of gone the way of buggy whips. They were indispensable at one point in time, but are used only by a select few today. Why? Because each and every one of us has access to our own “Clipping Service” – FOR FREE!

Google (yes, good ‘ole Google again) provides the free service called ‘Google Alerts’…and I strongly advise each and every one of you to at least set up a ‘vanity search’ for your own name…so you know what people are saying about you on the web.

It couldn’t be easier to set up. Simply go to www.google.com/alerts. The service DOES require a Google signon, but its a small price to pay for a VERY powerful service.

Use standard Google Search ‘rules’ (e.g. put a proper name in quotes to get results with the first and last name together) to get the results you are searching for, enter the search string in the ‘Search Query’ field. For example, if I want notifications for anything posted on the web about my company, I’d enter “Your Tech Tamer” (quotes INCLUDED). If you have a common name, you might want to tweak your search string to eliminate some errant notifications about the OTHER person/people with your name. We’ll use “Phil Collins”, but not THAT Phil Collins as an example. If you are A Phil Collins, but not THAT Phil Collins, you could enter a search string “Phil Collins” -Genesis -drummer -music. This will give you notifications of “Phil Collins” where the words “Genesis”, “drummer” and “music” are NOT mentioned. That helps to weed out some of the ‘other guys’. Additionally, if you go by a formal name and a nickname, you should set up BOTH alerts, the one above AND one for “Phillip Collins”.

If you want to limit the type of information you receive, you can select from the ‘Result Type’ drop-down and select ‘Everything’ or ‘Videos’ or ‘Blogs’, etc. to narrow down the amount of information. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want everything for this ‘clipping service’ on your name, but you have the option.

‘How Often’ will determine how frequently results are sent to your e-mail. You can choose from ‘As it happens’, ‘Once a day’ or ‘Once a week’.

‘How Many’ is a quality filter…changing this from the default may create a deluge of e-mail.

‘Deliver To’ is the e-mail address to which the digest will be sent.

Hit ‘Create Alert’ and Google will begin trawling the web for any new posts that match your criteria. NOTE: It does NOT give you all the things ALREADY posted…you can run a normal Google search for those. It WILL give you any NEW posts on the web that meet the criteria.

Sit back and wait for Google to deliver your newly created ‘clippings’ to your Inbox.

Only your own imagination limits the amount of information you can have filtered into your inbox. After you set up alerts for your own name and company, create ones for friends, family, co-workers, clients, and competitors. Then YOU will be the first person saying ‘Hey, I just heard you won that coveted award…Congratulations!’

If you need help with creating accurate Google search strings, check out this post from last August.

Who Are Your Neighbors?

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/02/19 16:05 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, General, Tech Tips  |  Comments (5)

Let me begin by saying that I am absolutely HORRIBLE with names. I don’t know why, but I am awful. I try to remember, I try all the mnemonic devices and still, I forget names that I really should know. Most embarrassingly are the names of my neighbors.

I’ve lived in my current house for almost 20 years. I love my neighborhood. I love my neighbors. That lady down the street that I wave to when she picks up her mail. The people at the end of the street with the adorable little boy who is rapidly becoming a young man. The people with the “Harley” mailbox. Over the years I’ve learned to at least recognize most of my neighbors, but I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know many of their names.

A reader of this blog (and a neighbor!) gave me a HUGE piece of assistance when he pointed out this website to me:

Who are your Neighbors?

Just click on the link (or the image above), enter your address, click the ‘Get Started’ button and your whole neighborhood (courtesy, I’m sure of Google Earth) appears with indicators over each neighbor’s house and their names/phone numbers. Now, I can figure out the missing names!!! YEAH!!!

How handy could this be?!?!

Did you get a Gift Card that you have no interest in using?

By Sandra Clitter  |  2012/01/03 21:02 Posted in (Mostly) Free Tools, General, Tech Tips  |  Comments (4)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Everyone!!!

Sorry things have been quiet on this end, but I got caught up in the holiday crazies (and loved every minute of it!). The days just seemed to fly by. Now that we’re in the January doldrums, it’s time to get back to work!

I am always amazed by the number of Gift Cards are are given/received each year. It seems like the numbers just go up and up and up. While I usually love getting a gift card, there are times when someone purchases a card that isn’t for a store/restaurant that one can actually frequent. Maybe someone bought you a gift card for Applebees, but the nearest Applebees is over 50 miles away. You might like getting the card, but never have a chance to actually USE it – or using it is impractical!

Well, if you’ve found that you have one or two of those ‘less than useful’ gift cards in your possession and you’d like to get some cash for them, you don’t need to beg an exchange with friends anymore. There are actually several sites which allow you to sell your unwanted gift cards for a fair percentage of the face value. WOOHOO!!

I came across two good articles this week that wrote about this phenomenon and decided that I would share what I read. The first is on a favorite site of mine: CNET How To. “How to sell your unwanted gift cards” by Jason Cipriani was the first that I came across. I was fascinated because it never dawned on me that such sites existed (although in retrospect, it makes sense).

The second article I found on a My Money Blog. Entitled “Selling Unwanted Gift Cards for Cash“, this one caught my eye, as well…probably because after reading the first article, I was pondering the pros/cons/risks of, in essence, reselling gift cards.

There appear to be four major services specializing in Gift Card “redemption”:

Cardpool.com
PlasticJungle.com
GiftCards.com
GiftCardRescue.com

For each type of card you want to redeem, compare between the sites – some pay better on one type of card and another may pay better on another type of card. I did a quick ‘what if’ with a card that I got (but which I’m not really going to redeem because I want to use it) and found the following results on the quote:

Regal Entertainment Card worth $25.00 face value would fetch:

Cardpool.com: $18.00
PlasticJungle.com: $18.00
GiftCards.com: $18.25
GiftCardRescue.com: $17.50 for Cash or $18.38 for an Amazon Gift Card

Both these authors cited above have done some good research on the topic and written excellent articles. Please check them out for further details, but I wanted to let everyone know that if you got a gift card for someplace you simply can not or will not patronize, there may be an option to turn that card into cash.

(Disclaimer: I have NOT completed any transaction, so can only go on the comments others have left regarding the subject)