[nikos1121]

Free Republic was down most of yesterday, so the daily CG was late getting out.

Survey question:

HOW DO YOU USUALLY SOLVE “TODAY’S CRYPTOGRAM?”

1. Pencil and paper
2. Pen and paper
3. Hal’s Helper
4. In my head

[MustKnowHistory]

I use Hal’s helper.

Today’s quote seems strangely prophetic.

Getting the first word correct and the three letter word with the double letter, did it for me.

[cartan]

HOW DO YOU USUALLY SOLVE “TODAY’S CRYPTOGRAM?”

3. Hal’s Helper

Computers were made to help us with tedious bookkeeping tasks like that!

[Moltke]

3. Hal’s Helper

helped me today to solve both CGs in about 3 mins.

[Roccus]

Hal’s Helper

[A_perfect_lady]

Hal’s all the way. I’d be hopeless otherwise.

[Jonah Hex]

5. Other on-line crypto solving tools.

[xrmusn]

I use Hal AND try to do one word at a time, though I do admit to ‘peeking’ ahead....

Todays was ‘hard(er)’ inasmuch as I did ‘guess’ correctly at the first word, the puzzle itself didn’t really make a whole lot of sense until it was completed....

Same word twice in a row can tend to throw one off...<: <: <:

Then again, through translation etc down the ages, the ‘olden times’ seemingly had people that couldn’t/wouldn’t say “Good Morning” in less than 15 words.....

[notdownwidems]

3

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

None of the above.

I paste it into an Excel worksheet that produces a histogram of letter frequencies, and duplicates the functionality of Hal's Helper (which also produces histograms, but annotates the frequency below the letters.)

I don't like Hal's format and appearance.

I have a couple of Octave(matlab-like freeware) scripts that I wrote. One that can produce histograms and formatted text, but I don't use it, and another based on an algorithms in Craig Bauer's book, Secret History: The Story of Cryptology that identifies likely vowels in monoalphabetic substitution ciphers, the kind used in cryptograms. It's more a curiosity than of any practical value. It is dead accurate on long ciphers, over about 500 characters, but almost useless on shorter ones. Besides if you need a computer to solve a 500 character cryptogram, you're doing it wrong.

[grey_whiskers]

2-3 min. 1st word, semi guess at 2nd word, 8th word.

[grey_whiskers]

HAL

[Ozymandias Ghost]

3. Hal’s Helper

[UpstateNYer]

Usually Hal's Helper but sometimes, when I'm feeling ambitious, I do them in my head.

I did today's in my head and it took 5+ minutes - pretty sure it would have been a quickie if I used Hal's.

[John4.11]

Hal’s Helper.

[Parley Baer]

Pencil and paper.

[gundog]

Did pen and paper for a lot of years. Doing Hal’s, now. Some I’ll try in my head.

[goodnesswins]

2&3

[Grammy]

I always use Hal’s. Thanks for providing the link!

[Ingtar]

3.

[Mr Fuji]

Probably about 4-5 minutes today.

To answer your question: 3 & 4. It just depends on how mentally tired I am in the evening.