Using git with ssh keys from the regular Windows command prompt without git bash

Install git for windows with all the defaults.

Create an ssh key if you don't already have one using ssh-keygen. Let's name it id_rsa_user.

Add the public key (id_rsa_user.pub) to your git service - bitbucket, gitlab, github, etc.

Enable the ssh-agent service in windows.

I've set mine to automatic - delayed start.

Move the your private key (id_rsa_user) to c:\users\<user>\.ssh

In the same folder, create a file called config with no extension. Populate it with the following:

Host gitlab.com
    HostName gitlab.com
    User git
    IdentityFile /c/Users/<user>/.ssh/id_rsa_user

Change your git service hostname as appropriate.

ssh push should now work.

SSH Tunneling on AWS that really works

I needed to tunnel MySQL traffic through an EC2 instance. Pretty straightforward right? No. Page after page on google and stackoverflow will show you something like this:

ssh -N -L 3306:<Target Host>:3306 user@example.com

One key point it that user@example.com is the login for the tunnel, not the target host. And even with the right login, it will not work on EC2. Here's what you need:

ssh -N -i .ssh/dev.pem -L 0.0.0.0:3306:<My SQL Host>:3306 ubuntu@127.0.0.1

The magic sauce is the 0.0.0.0 at the beginning which allows listening on ALL interfaces. The "-i .ssh/dev.pem" part is to use an ssh key for the login, which is required on AWS EC2 instances. You can add a -f flag to have this run in the background.

Use this to check if the tunnel is running:

lsof -i -n | egrep '\<ssh\>'

Ergo Human Elite 3 weeks review

I've been using a Steelcase Leap at home for about 10 years. It's a great chair, but mine doesn't have head support and due to poor posture on my part, I've been getting some neck pain. So, I started researching alternatives and tried a number at the office furniture stores. I've read good things about the Ergo Human v1 and found it in the store. I'm not a big fan of mesh chairs. I tried the leather one and didn't like it, the head cushion in particular is too forward compared to the mesh one. I ended up preferring the mesh one. Looking online, I found that they had a v2 with 5 fixed recline positions and slightly smaller. This one is a little hard to find and quite a bit more expensive than the v1. While looking for the v2, I found the Elite. It's a cross between the v1 and the v2. It has 4 fixed recline positions, the same sizing as the v2 but a different mesh pattern. It's available only in black and mesh. The controls are more like the v1 than the v2.

I ordered it from the manufacturer, who's in Austin. I was hoping to get it quickly, being in Dallas, but it took a little more than a week to receive it. And it was shipped from California. The packaging though adequate was not impressive and nowhere as well-designed as the chair. Installation wasn't too bad, took about 45 minutes by hand and using the included allen key.

The chair bottom is a little stiff, my behind is sore at the end of an 8 hour day even with hourly breaks. The lumbar support though "adjustable" goes only up and down but not high enough, and I'm only 5'9". Depth adjustment and more height would have been very useful. I've ended up adding a small inflatable cushion to give me the lumbar support I need. This is a real pity, it makes a very nice looking chair tacky.

The head support was one of the main reasons I got this chair. The good: it reminds me to keep my head against it and not slouch or lean forward like I tend to. But, it's adjustability is also very limited, it moves up and down and tilts up and down, but really needs depth adjustment.

The hand supports are very adjustable in all directions and quite good, but not as good as the Steelcase leap. They are also a little looser than I'd like and they move with the slightest touch.

The recline tension adjustment wheel has a pull out lever which seems good in theory, but when you spin it it tends to bend inward making it somewhat cumbersome.

In conclusion, the chair is a mixed bag, but I'll probably keep it, as I can't find anything better.

AMH A409U 40" 4K Monitor Quick Review

I found the AMH A399U while looking for a new monitor. The initial order didn't go through due to some complications and I came to know about it after a week. I was upset to be without a monitor for yet another week, but a quick search on ebay for a 40" 4k monitor showed me the A409U. Turned out this was a newer and better, at least on paper, version of the 399U. It didn't have the shiny screen problem of the 399U (although there are matte versions available).

I've used it for about a week. It came with a US power adapter so no hustling to get an adapter. This was my first monitor that required assembly - minor pain as I was doing it by myself, but not too bad.

Here is my quick review.

PROS:
- Looks gorgeous - excellent contrast and color!
- Minimum brightness is very good, this is often a problem with some device, I don't like death ray brightness
- Tiny Bezel
- Blacks are black!
- No light bleed that I can see, I didn't go looking for it, but I'm sensitive to it and it bugs me to no end, since I prefer to keep my editors with a black background


CONS:
- Starts in Korean and is hard to change to English without fiddling around - it really should start with a language menu
- Buttons are in the back and really requires a remote for adjustment, the remote is kludgy and not particularly well designed (minor issue)
- The speakers emit 2 loud clicks on starting (at least with DisplayPort)
- The sub-pixel layout is BGR and requires some tweaking to get the display looking good, and still looks a little odd with small fonts as compared to my 30" monitors.
- There is uneven lighting if you have a plain solid color - this is hard to see in normal usage though
- Still a little shinier than I'd like - it's not as matte as I'd like, but it's not shiny and mirror-like either.

Conclusion:
Although, there are many cons, they are minor, and I'd definitely recommend the monitor. The price to performance ratio is obscene.

How a Minimum Viable Product can hurt you

The idea of the Minimum Viable Product has become very popular recently mostly due the "Lean Startup" book. Obviously a great idea, but you have to tread very carefully.

I'd bought a Truly Ergonomic keyboard a while back. A "revolution in typing" is their claim. I wasn't really expecting a revolution. I like gadgets and keyboards in particular. I was prepared for the learning curve.

I connected the keyboard and started typing - the backspace key positioning was irksome, but quickly fixed with the remapper. I happily spent a little time remapping away.The remapper seems to be an MVP by itself considering how cumbersome it is, but more on that later.

When I started to really type, the "V" key wouldn't work - I thought that maybe there's a problem with the switch, I just tapped on it a few times and a little harder. It works sporadically. I then noticed a similar problem with the "F" key. Also, many times the keys would appear multiple times. Looks like a common debounce problem, which is tweakable by the remapper. I played around with various debounce values and none of them would make this keyboard usable. A little googling indicated that this problem is extremely common with this keyboard and the company support is virtually non-existent.

Obviously this is a small company with an idea to revolutionize keyboards (their words). They've invested time, money and effort in to designing and engineering. And following (incorrectly) the MVP approach they launched the keyboard despite very obvious flaws. The keyboard is downright unusable. If your product is unusable it is not a viable product, minimum or otherwise. Not only that, it ticks off your customers and users, who will bad mouth it and probably never come back. And when it comes to niche products like this, it's even scarier because there aren't that many customers to begin with and the community is well connected.

The remapper tool involves going to their website to do the actual remapping, then downloading a file and installing it using the firmware upgrade tool. This tool fails 2 out of 3 times, but shows a failure message on the 3rd time even if it succeeded. The remapper tool might qualify as an MVP as it serves it's purpose, though it's ugly and crude. What's funny is, that Truly hasn't updated this tool in a long time. There's no native tool which works seamlessly. They have not gone beyond an MVP for the remapper utility.

They've released an updated keyboard, but I'm not going to try it. I've lost faith in the company. They could have mitigated the problem with outstanding customer service, but they chose not to.

A Minimum Viable Product needs to work - it can have some bugs as long as it serves it's primary purpose and is usable. It can lack features, which can be added later based on user demand and feedback. But, if it does not serve it's main purpose, it's doomed to fail.

Why I uninstalled Bitdefender and went with ESET NOD32

BitDefender has been my anti-virus for a few years now. I used to use Windows Defender before that, but it doesn't seem to have kept up, giving other manufacturers a chance. After reading many reviews and tests, I chose BitDefender as it seemed to have the best or near detection rate in multiple tests. I uninstalled it today. Here's why.

I've been using a utility called File Menu Tools (FMT) from Lopesoft for a long time, it's a Windows Explorer Context Menu that allows many file and folder operations within Windows Explorer without having to install a third party File Browser. One extremely useful feature it has is a file renamer tool that covers every scenario I need, including regular expressions. Today FMT requested an update. FMT doesn't update at all regularly, so I let it do it's thing. It seemed to make many calls and downloads which I thought a bit odd, but updates are rarely done as well as Chrome (completely silent and invisible to the user, which might have it's own disadvantages). BitDefender detected a virus and deleted it. Good, but a little upsetting that this little tool seems to have been the culprit. I semi-correctly guessed that FMT has decided to include advertising software along with it's update, but BitDefender took care of it. Unfortunately, it was worse.

I checked Task Manager and noticed a few new processes like bbqLeads and others. I'd been set up with a proxy and all my internet traffic was going through the proxy. I ran a scan with BitDefender which pickup NOTHING. I manually then hunted down the processes, and tried a few scans through VirusTotal, and hits were from ESET NOD32 every time and a few with TrendMicro-Housecall. After manually cleaning up the mess for about 2 hours, I uninstalled BitDefender and downloaded and installed ESET NOD32.

To make sure that ESET can live up to it's expectations, I went to the Lopesoft website and tried to download FMT. The big prominent download link was immediately blocked. I tried the mirror, which happens to be the actual download. The download started, but just before it completed, ESET warned me about a virus and blocked it. Awesome!

PC Magazine was one of the sources that highly recommends BitDefender, and I've had respect for them. They claim that ESET has poor malware blocking, but don't really mention BitDefender's blocking abilities. I don't know if this is a conspiracy or things have just changed since the publication. But, I'll just take their articles with a pinch of salt going forward.

It's really sad that software writers have to resort to this nasty habit of installing malware, often sneakily to make money. The Apple and Android app stores are great proof that charging reasonable prices can make you money. $1 - $5 is the sweet spot. When software costs about the price of a cup of coffee, it's a no-brainer. Mobile apps are no less complex than a windows or desktop app, the effort involved is comparable. There's no reason that you should try to charge more or tarnish your reputation by installing viruses with your software. Obviously, more complex and larger software should demand higher prices - but simpler and smaller ones that are obviously one-man jobs would greatly benefit from the mobile market model.

What went wrong with the Samsung Galaxy S5

The S5 is Samsung's mainstream flagship device. The one that's supposed to be the biggest competitor to the iPhone. It really didn't work out that way. Article after article show other Android devices, such as the LG G3 or HTC One M8 as better than the S5. Where did Samsung go wrong with the S5?

Apple's primary claim to fame is their user experience, not just the software, but the hardware as well. Their devices are nice to look at and nice to hold. It doesn't matter if they lack some features and doesn't matter that they might be delicate. The sheer covetousness that Apple's devices exude is what sells the devices. Samsung hasn't quite got that yet. It still has the stodgy Windows Mobile manufacturer mindset.

The S5 has probably more features than any other device on the market - finger print scanner (which the iPhone has), waterproofing, heart rate monitor (arguably gimmicky), wireless charging (requires a separate charging back), micro SD card slot, removable battery and more. From a sheer feature count it's an awesome device. It has an awesome screen with the best contrast ratio on the market.

But, it's not particularly beautiful. Comparing the iPhone, the HTC One and the G2, it's the ugliest. And it does not fit nicely in the hand, it simply not a pleasure to hold. The metal edge with it's ridges feels uncomfortable and looks ugly and dated. The physical home button, which looks like a blind copy of Apple's is an anachronism. Ugly and not pleasant to use. The finger print reader is not as easy to use as the iPhone's which simply requires a press to wake and unlock. The S5 needs to be switched on and then swiped. It needs two hands to unlock easily. The swipe is somewhat finicky and requires careful movement.

Samsung needs to lose the look it adopted with the S3 and continues with the S5, and come up with something fresh that's easy on the eyes and on the hand. It should lose the mechanical home button. It should replace the swipe fingerprint scanner with a static non-swipe one - maybe on the back, and have it usable one handed. It should lose it's idiotic, overbearing and much reviled TouchWiz and go with vanilla Android.

nginx + uwsgi + web2py: 502 Bad Gateway Error

I started receiving this on one of 2 load balanced servers. Nginx's logs showed this:

upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream

I tried restarting uwsgi:

restart uwsgi-emperor

Uwsgi restarted fine, but the problem still persisted. Uwsgi's log showed this:

Fatal Python error: Couldn't create autoTLSkey mapping

This was fixed by doubling the memory in the uwsgi config file (/etc/uwsgi/web2py.ini) from:

limit-as = 512
reload-on-as = 256
reload-on-rss = 192

to

limit-as = 1024
reload-on-as = 512
reload-on-rss = 384

and restarting uwsgi.

Fix and Enable Pressure Sensitivity on Sony Flip 15/15A in Photoshop

Many have been disappointed with the lack of Pressure Sensitivity support for Photoshop 64-bit on this awesome laptop/tablet. There's a simple fix.

Create a file that contains instructions to use the RealTimeStylus functionality. To enable the RealTimeStylus functionality:

    Create a text file in a text editor such as Notepad and type in the following lines:

# AllowRTS
uRTS 1

Save the file as a plain text file named PSUserConfig.txt, and save the file into the Photoshop settings folder: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC\Adobe Photoshop CC Settings\.

To turn off the RealTimeStylus functionality, delete the PSUSerConfig.txt file. Or, move it to a different folder if it doesn't contain any other commands, or change the lines so they read:

# AllowRTS
uRTS 0

Credit to the Sony Community forum and user Keiran for the above.

The above only works with Photoshop CC and didn't work on CS6. For CS6, download and install the N-Trig drivers for the Surface Pro 3 from http://ntrig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Downloads_Drivers

Make sure Photoshop is not running when you do any of the above.

SSH from Windows to Linux without a password and without Putty

SSH into Linux from Windows is possible through the Cygwin SSH client, but logging in without a password can be a little tricky. It look me a little trial and error to get it working, so here are my steps:

Open a command prompt and login as root or another user with root privileges.

Create the user, if you haven't already and set the password (I'm using techn, change it to whatever username you want).

useradd techn
passwd techn

Give this user root privileges for now. You can take them away later, if needed.

usermod -G root techn

Create the .ssh directory for techn

mkdir /home/techn/.ssh

Give ownership of the .ssh directory to techn

 chown techn:root .ssh

Assign permissions for this directory to techn

chmod 700 /home/techn/.ssh

Exit the ssh session

exit

From the windows command prompt, run ssh-keygen

ssh-keygen

Choose the defaults, use a password if you want.

Now, the public key (id_rsa.pub) needs to be transferred to the linux server. If you were doing this from linux, you could use the ssh-copy-id script, but this doesn't work from the windows command prompt. So, we use this instead:

cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh techn@LINUX-HOST "cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

It should ask you for techn's password. Supply it and if you receive no error messages, you've succeeded in sending the public key to your linux host. This only works if you have root privileges, sudo doesn't seem to work here. Now you should be able to login without a password:

ssh techn@LINUX-HOST

The following instructions only apply if you want to set up techn with sudo.

On the linux server, install sudo

apt-get install sudo

Log out and log back in as root and remove techn from the root group and put them in the the sudo group

usermod -G sudo techn

Create a text file called 'techn' in your home directory and paste this inside it:

techn ALL=(ALL) ALL

Set the right permissions for this file

chmod 440 techn

Move the file to sudoers.d directory

mv techn /etc/sudoers.d

Do NOT try create this file directly in the sudoers.d directory. You will run in to all kinds of trouble.

Simple Master-Slave Replication in MySQL

There's a lot of documentation to set up MySQL replication. The official MySQL documentation goes in to a lot of detail. It took me a while to get it running though. Here's a simple step by step guide for a very simple master-slave setup based on my experience. This was done Ubuntu 12. You might have to tweak the paths and shell commands for other Linux distros.

1. On both master and slave, allow remote access in /etc/mysql/my.cnf. Set

   bind-address = 0.0.0.0

2. Configure the slave in my.cnf

   server-id = 30 #unique id
   log-bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log
   log-slave-updates
   replicate-same-server-id = 0
   auto_increment_increment = 10
   auto_increment_offset = 2 # unique offset
   report-host = let # slave host name
   

3. Restart mysql (shell)

   restart mysql

   or (depending on how mysql has been set up)

   service mysql.server restart

4. Create a slave user on the master (in mysql):

   CREATE USER 'rep_slave'@'SLAVE IP ADDRESS' IDENTIFIED BY 'replication_password';

5. Allow replication for slave user (in mysql):

   grant replication slave on *.* to 'rep_slave'@'SLAVE IP ADDRESS';

6. If data needs to be imported from the master, import it using mysqldump
   
   
7. On the Master MySQL get the Log File Name & Log Position (in mysql)

     FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;
     SHOW MASTER STATUS;
   

8. On the slave (in mysql)

    CHANGE MASTER TO
      MASTER_HOST='master_host_name/IP address',
      MASTER_USER='rep_slave',
      MASTER_PASSWORD='replication_password',
      MASTER_LOG_FILE='recorded_log_file_name',
      MASTER_LOG_POS=recorded_log_position;
   
   SHOW SLAVE STATUS \G
   
   START SLAVE
   

9. On the Master (in mysql)

   UNLOCK TABLES
   

Pinout for Harman Kardon BT Bluetooth Headphones Charger Cable

I just got this headset and really love it. I'll probably lose the somewhat non-propriety charger cable, which uses a standard USB A connector on one end and a 2.5" 4-pin audio connector jack on the other. So, here's the pin diagram.

Google Reader on the execution block

Google has decided to retire Google Reader on July 1st 2013. I can't begin to understand what brought on this decision. Google reader is hugely popular and my favorite RSS feed reader. I'm upset and beginning to wonder if I should wean myself of google's services as they seem to be arbitrarily retiring products without reason.

Time to start hunting for alternatives. You should export your subscriptions from "Reader Settings -> Import/Export".

Update 8pm Central:
There are alternatives - netvibes being the most popular. But, netvibes is very different from Google Reader, and I like Google Reader's way of doing things. I found one that's quite similar to Google Reader at least at first glance. It's not free, it has a 30 day trial and is reasonably priced and has a pay what you want pricing structure starting at $9 a year. Definitely worth it, in my opinion and hopefully shouldn't go away too soon.

bazqux.com

Anvir Task Manager

There are many task managers out there. I usually use the built-in Windows Task Manager, but when I need something more powerful, the one I use most often is Anvir Task Manager. It comes in 3 flavors: Free, Standard and Pro. The differences are shown here. The free one is quite competent as a Task Manager and is powerful.

There are many bells and whistles that Anvir offers, including startup monitoring. I don't use this feature myself, primarily because I don't leave it running all the time. The distinguishing features that I use are:

1. The ability to kill multiple processes simultaneously. This is very useful if you need to kill viruses, malware or any other rogue processes that have one or more watchdog processes that respawn killed processes. Simply hold Ctrl or Shift while left-clicking on the processes you want to kill and then right-click and left-click "Kill Process".
2. The ability to show open file handles.
3. The ability to show open network connections and associated information.

One thing I really don't like about Anvir, is the almost malware like applications it tries to install during installation. This is a sleazy practice that many freeware developers have started doing. Many people drop such software to show their displeasure of this practice and rightly so. Yes, developers should earn money for their work, but sneaking in unwanted programs, which are annoying and often difficult to remove, really hurts the developer's reputation, especially in the long run.

Add a donate button, you already have premium versions of the program. Yes, most people will not donate, but some will. One thing software developers should learn from the success of the iPhone AppStore and Android's Play Store is that people will buy software without almost thinking if priced right. $50 is something most people will have to think over for a while and most will decide not to buy. Price it at $10 or so, and people can buy without thinking, if it costs them the price of a meal.

To those who've decided to install the program, please read very carefully and click carefully to not install any of the crapware. Anvir Task Manager is a great program, with some bad decisions on the installer.

Anvir Task Manager

Pencil - an open-source cross-platform UI mockup tool

When starting a new project, a mockup is indispensable. People often use paper and/or MS Paint on one side and Photoshop/Illustrator on the other. None of these tools are specifically designed for creating UI mockups, and therefore impede efficiency.

Enter Pencil - an open source tool designed for the sole purpose of creating markups. It's straightforward and does what it's designed to do well and the files created can be shared across multiple platforms. This is especially useful when you have team members avowed to different platforms.

It's quite powerful, but remains straightforward and easy to use. It has a huge number of controls/widgets and styles, for many different platforms. You can even create your own stencils. It lets you export to a variety of formats including png, svg and pdf. You can even do flowcharts.

Grab it here: http://pencil.evolus.vn/

Aero not working on Windows 7

Aero was a nice visual addition in Vista which also exists in Windows 7. It's not just eye candy, the Alt-Tab preview and the aero peek on the task bar are incredibly useful. A common recurring problem is when it stops working for no apparent reason. Microsoft even has a little automated utility to try to help you fix it.

When this happened to me, I spent a little time searching, and found the above utility. It did nothing and claimed that my video card (a Radeon 7970), which used to display Aero perfectly, isn't capable of supporting Aero.

Here's what I tried:

• Many reboots: didn't help
• Updated the graphics drivers: didn't help. The repair utility still claimed that my graphics card doesn't support Aero
• Installed all updated, which I was behind on: This didn't help either
• Tried killing all running process that I could. No go.
• Uninstalled a few applications I had installed in the past 2 days, still no go

Finally I remembered installing the IE 10 preview, in the past 2 days, but it does not show in the add remove programs - it shows under installed updates. I uninstalled IE 10, but it still didn't work. So, I started looking at other updates. I hadn't installed any updates the day I installed IE 10, but I found 3. Installed each one and rebooted each time. The first 2 did nothing, but finally after the last uninstall and reboot, Aero started working again.

I should have made note of the KB update number(s), but at this point I was pretty frustrated, thinking I'd have to restore a drive image. If any one knows the KB numbers of the updates installed with the IE 10 preview, please let me know.

Summary: IE 10 preview and associated updates can cause Aero to stop working.

Edit 2012-11-19: Thanks, Dean for the KB update number: KB2670838.

AutoTextSender: a utility to auto type text for screencasts

I need to make a screencast and the screencast requires some typing. Typing on a screencast is usually slower than your viewers will appreciate and is prone to errors and retyping. One way of fixing this problem is to edit the video and speed up the typing and delete the errors. This to me is wasted effort. Another way is to paste the text, but this doesn't work very well if you have many fields to fill.

So, here's my solution to the problem: AutoTextSender is a little utility that reads a text file and types out the phrases one by one, as you press F1 (which is configurable).

Here's how you use it: Create a text file called 'AutoTextSender.data' containing the text you want to send. Separate each phrase with '~' . Press F1 to send each phrase. Press Esc to quit. You can change the hotkeys, data file name, separator character and delay between each key press using the following Command Line Parameters:

/noToolTips or /nt: don't show tooltips
/sep=<character> a character to separate phrases. default: ~
/delay=<ms> delay between keys in milliseconds. default: 10
/send=<hotkey> hotkey to send phrases. default: F1
/quit=<hotkey> hotkey to quit. default: ESC
/pause=<hotkey> hotkey to pause. default: PAUSE
/data=<data file> phrase data file. default: AutoTextSender.data

AutoTextSender is free software, and comes with no warranty or spyware.

Download AutoTextSender

Fingerprint Reader on Lenovo x200/x200s in Windows 8

I'd tried the developer preview on a Windows Tablet PC, but that was a nightmare. This time I installed it on a Lenovo X200S, primarily to make use of the performance boost on this lightweight (<2.7lbs) but underpowered machine. It looks good so far. Performance does seems snappier than Windows 7.

But, the first thing I missed was that the built-in Fingerprint reader was not automatically supported, even though some others reported that it worked on their x200. Perhaps there is some difference between the x200 and x200s fingerprint readers. I dutifully installed the x200/x200s from Lenovo's website, it complained that it wasn't supported. I forced it to install under compatibility mode, but still no go even after several reboots.

Although this post is meant to be a review of Windows 8 or Bing, I have to mention this. I tried searching on Bing for "Windows 8 x200 Fingerprint" (without quotes). I did not get anything useful and most results were old from 2008 and 2009. Google did lead me to Lenovo's fingerprint software page, which did not mention support for the x200/x200s. I downloaded and installed anyway and it installed without complaints. I went in to Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Manage your Fingerprint data and I was greeted with the Lenovo Fingerprint enrollment screen. And it works!

Yet another Clipboard Manager - ShapeShifter

Here's another clipboard manager - ShapeShifter. This one has an even more different approach. It tries to be unobtrusive and not change your work flow by not not adding any new shortcut keys. To view your clip menu you hold Ctrl-V and then select the item by using the arrow keys. It gives you a nice preview of the items including images, files and text. This is a nice idea, but I find the 3 key combination a little hard to accomplish. I wish it included an option for a second shortcut to view the clip menu and numeric/function keys to select an item. Alternatively, it uses the Windows 7/8 taskbar to preview your clips as well.

Another minor drawback I found is the memory usage, even though it has an active memory management technique to reduce memory usage - I found it used up 48MB of RAM on startup. However, when I disabled and renabled the memory management it went down to 10MB and back up to 13MB, but stayed at 13MB.

Despite the minor issues - which the developer should be able to fix easily enough, it's a great utility and worth trying out especially if you aren't already invested in other clipboard managers.

Download it here: flamefusion.net/software/shapeshifter-clipboard-manager

A really nice Clipboard Manager - Clipmon

Clipboard Managers are a dime a dozen. There are a few that stand out. Here's one called ClipMon.

It has a slightly different take on the concept. It lets you search, view and even edit clips.
 ClipMon. It lets you select a clip using a number key, once you launch the clip menu using a shortcut you define.

Download it here: pa-soft.com/clipmon.html