Used Software Solutions

Sharing family media; only limited by your bandwidth

aakashprabhu — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:32:39 +0000

So for a while now, we have been sending family media files using CD/DVDs, or splitting files into 2MB/10MB or whatever your email provider assigns you. Some tech savy people and people who can afford to get their own site up can upload files to a server and share it from there. To sum it up the free ones had size limitation and the paid ones were expensive to share large files.

There is a free solution now that I have been using from a software and service called Qnext. Qnext uses private P2P (Process 2 Process) technology to share files right from your computer to your contact/family members. There is no limit on the size of the file. They support the three leading OS’s Windows, Linux and OSX. The software allows you to share by using their client program or by using HTTP address. The HTTP address is kind of cool because you send the private link to all your friends and they can download it right from the browser (no-client install needed). However, if you are looking to share with your family and friends on a regular basis then I recommend downloading the client and creating a free account with them.

The software also comes with universal instant messaging client, photo gallery, music streaming etc. The photo gallery is also kind of cool, because you get to share the pictures right from your home computer (no uploads). Go check them out or read reviews like the ones below.

Here are others talking about this product.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,120232-page,1/article.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1638931,00.asp

Vista theme for Firefox

aakashprabhu — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:37:48 +0000

Firefox add-ons developers now have Vista theme for those of us still working in the Windows XP. I tried it and looks pretty close to how you see it in Vista. You will not get the whole 3D like appearance but you get the colors and the aero background for the browser.

Free Remote Access and Desktop Control

aakashprabhu — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 05:20:00 +0000

I own a old Mac Power PC based system and have not upgraded to the Intel based Mac yet (I guess I am waiting for Leopard to come out). So anyway, I wanted to use my Windows Laptop and remotely connect to the Mac and have the feel of running Mac in my laptop The free software from LogmeIn does exactly that!

If you are looking to access your Windows based PC at home or Mac at home, you must give this product a try. The user interface refresh sometimes takes time, but has been mostly good for me. They also have a full-screen mode that will make you feel like you are right in front of the remote computer. They also have some paid versions which you can compare here.

Personally I use the free version it works great for remote access. If you want file sharing and other features you might want to try it out.

(MSN + AIM + ICQ + Yahoo + Gtalk + Jabber) – One browser, Any Browser

aakashprabhu — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:01:00 +0000

If you are not allowed to install softwares at your work, but allowed to browse Internet then you must pay a visit to these guys called Meebo. They have done an amazing job in extending instant messaging to a pure web based experience. So when I am at a friends place or when I don’t feel like home in a different computer, I use Meebo to communicate with others.

Now for the people who enjoy talking encrypted they also provide a HTTP(s) channel to chat, which can be accessed by adding an “s” to the http Secure Meebo.

Virtualization – Open and Free

aakashprabhu — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:39:00 +0000

Few weeks back a friend of mine was amazed (Non-IT) that you could run “two computers in one”, at least that is how he called it. What he saw was Virtualization Technology in my laptop being able to run both Windows and Linux concurrently. He was looking for a cheaper alternative to run an almost virus-free operating system and somehow came to know about Linux (maybe through the recent Dell Linux Laptops). Yes, he is also aware of the “Get a Mac” TV Ads, but budget constraints prevents him from getting one.

So anyway, he was looking at my VMWare workstation and was asking if there is a free alternative to VMWare workstation where he can install Linux and enjoy the “almost virus free browsing for a while”. I gave him two options.

(1) VMWare Free Player – and use the Browser Appliance
(2) VirtualBox – A nice free virtualization product.

VMWare Free Player I think is great if you just want to use their version of the operating system and your usage is limited to just browsing using firefox. If you are looking for a full fleged free virtualization product that allows you to install Linux using DVD/CD then VirutalBox is definitely worth a try.

Launchy – The open source keystroke launcher for Windows

aakashprabhu — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:47:00 +0000

Recently I came across this product called Launchy – The open source keystroke launcher for Windows. I find this product to be interesting if you like to just type the name of the program to launch the program. For example, Vista has this thing in their default search application above the task bar. Launchy works in Windows XP also.

Once you install this and run, do not expect to see a menu or settings. The application runs in the background. Press “ALT+SPACE” combination to open the application window. Just start typing and you will see launchy offering you application to start. If you like what you see, just press “ENTER” to launch the target application.

UPDATE:
I just came to know that this also does a lot of other things. For example if you type 1+2 it actually calculates If you type a web address it knows to take you to the site with your default browser. You can type “Weather” and tab and then type your zip code it takes you to weather.com … Well thought out application!

Task Freak!

aakashprabhu — Tue, 22 May 2007 04:01:00 +0000

I am not saying I am a “Task Freak” but if I were one, I think my recent discovery of this web based tool would be a lot of help to manage and syndicate tasks. The user interface is one of those “cool” web2.0 Ajax-ified ones and supports RSS feeds as well. They give you scripts for both PHP+MySQL or PHP+sqlite.

Support for single user and multi-user available. If you ask me, one of the neat features of this tool is that it provides RSS feeds of your task. From a user experience standpoint, I like the fact that you click on those grids and update your task completion by 20% 40% etc. If I were managing a team, I can get up-to-date information thorough the feeds (provided they update it). Go check them out at http://www.taskfreak.com/

Installation is simple and documented with the download. If you do not have a PHP/MySQL /sqlite environment just go to portableapps.com and get yourself a XAMPP; is an integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP in XAMPP) that all run from a removable drive. Everything is pre-configured and ready to go just by unzipping or installing it.

My Browser in My Thumb Drive

aakashprabhu — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:45:00 +0000

I have been using Firefox one of my favorite browsers in a thumb drive for quite sometime. When I first started using it I thought this is one of those experimental things that I will overtime, relinquish. Its been more than 6 months now and I seem to enjoy the comfort of carrying around a browser with me wherever I go. Corporate trips, back home (laptop+desktop) and more importantly the comfort of carrying your favorites, cookies and temporary files with you. Well, think of it like you have a roaming profile you carry with you all the time.

If you want to try this out take a look at Portable Apps. They also have bunch for Portable IM, Portable Office. Now looking at the way they are releasing applications I think I might have to upgrade my thumb drive from 1Gb to maybe 4GB? The idea of carrying a browsing tool and an open office solution all in a thumb drive entices me!

Windows ReadyBoost – Add-on Memory?

aakashprabhu — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:16:00 +0000

Years back I thought having a plug and play type RAM to laptops would be a great idea. When memory becomes cheap you can almost rent RAM for your performance needs. In Windows Vista they have this concept of add-on memory known as ReadyBoost.

MS describes this feature allows “You to use nonvolatile flash memory devices, such as universal serial bus (USB) flash drives, to improve performance without having to add memory “under the hood.” The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard disk drive.”

It is easy to try this out. Take a USB thumb drive and plug it in to the the available USB 2.0 slot. Vista will tell if that device can be used for readyboost (I guess it does it based on I/O speed). If it does just follow on-screen instructions to enable ReadyBoost on the device. It does help, when you try to use applications repeatedly like browser, word, excel etc.

This still is not closer to actually increasing RAM in your system, but I guess we are getting closer to a time and day when I would order RAM from “Netflix”

The new Sleep Option In Vista

aakashprabhu — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:08:00 +0000

So I have been using Vista for a while. I like this new feature called “sleep” that puts your laptop into a low power consuming state. It seems to be a hybrid between the old stand-by and hibernate feature available in XP’s. I read somewhere that first Vista stores stuff in RAM and then behind the scenes stores a copy in HDD as a fail safe alternative. Also by default looks like Vista puts the computer in sleep mode (at least in mine, not sure if this a universal feature of Vista).

In my Mac OSX this feature was always there and I liked their Sleep option. I guess now I can have it in the windows world too.