TechByter Worldwide 2016.08.14: Free Classes at MIT and Elsewhere; Analyzing Adware, Scareware, and Crapware; Short Circuits; and Spare Parts.

People who are looking for ways to learn but aren't concerned about earning a degree from learning have lots of free resources to choose from on the internet. Analysis of pay-per-install schemes reveals how these annoying ride-along bits of crapware can be added to your computer when you think you're installing just a single application and how the business monetizes itself. In Short Circuits: This week seemed to be a good time to mention some of the useful Mac-based utilities that I've been adding now that I once again own a Mac. Among them are some old friends from Windows -- the VLC video player and CrashPlan, for example. But there are also some new Mac-only programs such as Atext, NameChanger, and TextWrangler. In Spare Parts (only on the website): New techniques promise to make iris recognition a better way to validate users on all sorts of devices in many kinds of businesses, CliffsNotes is starting a process that will place much of the company's instructional materials on-line, and a company that promotes a way to manage your child's electronic allowance seems not to have noticed that the company that provides the service went out of business last month.