...confessions of a freeware junkie...

Sending large files to a friend without a web service? Create a torrent!

2009-10-28T09:00:00.003-05:00

There have been times that I have needed to send large files (like I'm talking around 1Gb or more) to my friends...and well, you know - something over 5Mb is just plain rude to send through email. There are 3rd party services like transferbigfiles.com, yousendit.com, FilesOverMiles.com and others. It's great to have these available, but sometimes I just don't want to use a 3rd party service, but I do want to take advantage of the great features that the Bittorrent protocol gives me.

So, how do I send a copy of a DVD of home movies to my family?

Here's a great article from www.bootstrike.com: Creating a [Private] Torrent using uTorrent (Guide/Tutorial) Version 0.51 - the title says it all.

The summary goes something like this:

Install uTorrent
Identify your IP address and upload port for uTorrent incoming connections (you will need an address that will be yours for as long as you need to upload the file to your friend/family)
Enable the self-tracking feature of uTorrent via the setup options.
Note your tracker URL - - i.e. http://yourip:incomingport/announce
Add a Torrent with your file or folder you wish to share, add your local tracker to the torrent. Enable 'start seeding' and 'private torrent' then click 'Create and save as...'
Send the Torrent file to your friend/family and have them drag it into their Torrent downloader.

To get optimum performance from your BitTorrent client, check out the great guide provided by bootstrike.com here: http://www.bootstrike.com/Articles/BitTorrentGuide/

Easily Install Multiple Software Programs With Ninite [del.icio.us]

2009-10-27T08:00:18-07:00

Installing multiple software applications can be quite a painstaking, time-consuming chore, but a Y Combinator-funded startup has just pushed a tool that aims to make the process very, very easy. And free of charge on top of that. Meet Ninite, a multi-app installer tool thats as useful as it is simple.

Antivirus Now available: Microsoft Security Essentials

2009-10-16T07:00:00.004-05:00

Microsoft Security Essentials
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

A new free Antivirus to rival the likes of Avast!, Avira and AVG (huh, a lot of 'A' packages, eh?)...or so we hope. Microsoft has retired it's Live OneCare product in favor of their new Microsoft Security Essentials package. So far, initial reviews have been favorable (See yesterday's post).

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

In its first week, it has been downloaded over 1.5 million times...not bad, but it will be interesting to see how it performs in the long-term.

I've installed it my pc in lieu of Avira and Avast!. I usually go for Avira when configuring my personal customer's machines...no registration key to enter once per year, but this might be a good alternative due to its pure simplicity.

Client download is small, I've noticed no system slowdown and it even picked up a virus that Avira missed (but this might be because I did not perform a full scan with Avira before loading MSE).

One word of warning, though: If your Windows version isn't valid (i.e. it fails the WGA test), then it will not install.

Have you tried it? What do you think?

A new free antivirus has hit the virtual shelves!

PC World Reviews Free Antivirus Solutions: Avira comes out on top, but there are some notable surprises...

2009-10-15T07:00:00.002-05:00

In the latest issue of PC World, they review the top free Antivirus solutions available including (but not limited to) Avira, AVG, Avast!, Comodo and others.

Not surprisingly, Avira comes out on top.

Here's the quick summary:

Avira has the best heuristic protection, making it great to prevent unknown threats. Also, scan speed was a plus, while it got negative points for its interface for non-techies. The one thing that always bothered me about Avira was the advertisements for the pro version, but thankfully, there are ways to get around this. This seems like the best for technical folks.

Avast! has a great anti-malware mechanism, but the interface is still the same as it has been for years: clunky, clunky, and oh, did I mention? Clunky - it's not intuitive to a new (or sometimes longtime) user how to scan your computer. I have, however always liked how it allows you to run a boot-time scan in addition to a screen-saver mode. One bad mark from me is that you have to re-register every year. Not that this is an issue for me, but for 99% of my home-users that I support, they let it expire and never re-register. *shakes head*

AVG is the darling of the Internet. It has a pretty friendly interface, and it was fair at blocking new unknown threats. Overall speed wasn't the greatest and its malware detection wasn't up to snuff to Avira. With that said, it did do a good job of preventing false-positives. I can see this as a toss-up with the new (and not fully reviewed) Cloud Antivirus for being the friendliest for non-techies.

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta (which has since been released) is a newcomer to the AV market, replacing the OneCare line. This one actually scored pretty well, cleaning malware with ease, including new unknowns. The biggest ding against it was its scan speed. It is noted in the review that this is beta, so there is a possibility that this could change with the full version.

PCTools Antivirus rated poorly, ok, terribly with regards to spyware protection. In addition, it "left the door wide open for about half of the malware in our tests." It scored dead last in detecting new unknown threats. Also, it didn't schedule a scan by default, nor is it set for automatic updates without manually configuring after installation.

Comodo Internet Security has a special place since it also is a freely available commercial solution (unlike the others), and it includes a firewall product (which was not reviewed). The bad? The default installation changes your default browser search engine, installs a social toolbar, and switches your homepage to hopsurf.com. Yikes. It scored a 74.6% malware detection rate, and produced the most false-positives of any of the programs reviewed, which in my book is unacceptable. Finally, it has a prompt-to-accept action based methodology that prompts you to allow or deny certain actions from being taken. This reminds me (and apparently, the reviewer too) a lot of the old firewall programs of a few years back.

A couple mentions but weren't included in the final scoring was ClamWin ("not ready for primetime" - mostly for its lack of active scanning, and virus detection was mediocre), and the new kid on the block, Panda Cloud Antivirus, which from initial showings seems like a great contender.

Interesting stuff...over the years, I've always been a fan of Avast! but I have to say, I've been using Avira on my home computers as of late. It does do a great job, as long as you keep the advertisements to a minimum. I will be trying Microsoft Security Essentials soon, though - I like to keep track of what's out there!

Not that this reflects the free apps specifically, but the av-test.org quadrant map shows some good information with regards to AV effectiveness, which is indicative of the company's free offerings which (I would guess) use the same scanning engine.

Creative Commons Search [del.icio.us]

2009-10-12T11:45:20-07:00

A Creative Commons-based search search engine of search engines.

Open Source Alternative Solutions - System Utilities [del.icio.us]

2009-10-06T09:40:23-07:00

Great Open Source Network and Inventory monitoring solutions (short list)

4sysops - Top free Windows administration tools [del.icio.us]

2009-09-22T07:19:52-07:00

Top free Windows administration tools

CtxAdmTools - Tools for Citrix, Microsoft and VMware Administrators and Consultants [del.icio.us]

2009-09-21T07:23:20-07:00

A nice assortment of AD/LDAP and Citrix utilities.

Web Filter, Firewall, Spam Blocker and more for your budget network: Untangle

2009-09-17T21:22:00.009-05:00

http://www.untangle.com

Disclaimer: This is not a Windows app specifically, but there is an Untangle build for Windows. In this article, I will be talking about the Linux-based Untangle appliance OS.

You ever get the feeling that the big security companies are conspiring against us? You know what I mean; new viruses and malware are released and you just need to have the shiny new hardware appliance to plug into your rack to keep it all out, right?

If you are a small (or heck, let’s face it, medium too) IT shop, you know it’s hard to budget for those items like a decent spam blocker, new firewall, or a web filter. Rejoice my friends, here’s a free offering that can help you along the path of a secure Internet and keep those nasties at bay.

Untangle is an open-source project based on the Debian Linux Kernel which allows you to easily (and I mean EASILY) plug in new virtual security appliances to your network with hardly a dime spent.

My test setup:

HP dc7100 Ultra-Slim form factor PC with 768Mb RAM, 3.0Ghz Intel HT and 40Gb Hard Disk
1 x 1Gb internal LAN adapter (inside interface)
1 x 100Mb PCI LAN adapter (external interface)
4-port NetGear switch

Download and install

Downloading the ISO was a cinch (as they all are, right?) from Untangle’s website. I burned the image to a disc using CDBurnerXP. I then booted the disc in the 7100 and ran the installation using the install wizard, usually accepting all defaults - - again, this was not a difficult install at all.

Once the installation was completed, I was presented with a screen to configure my network adapters (you’ll need two for a bridged/internal and external interface). You’ll be prompted at this point to decide whether you want to set the Untangle OS up as a DHCP server or not – most likely, you probably won’t, but in my scenario (for public kiosk stations), I did.

The interface

The entire OS interface is essentially a wallpaper and a series of buttons at the bottom of the screen which allow you to do a few basic things like shutdown, restart, change resolution, etc. – however, the button with real power here is the ‘Start Untangle Client’ button.

Once opened, Untangle presents you with an empty (think 2-post) “rack”. To get started with new applications and functionality, you simply browse and install them from the left-hand pane. Once again – the install is as simple as a single click. When you find and click on your app of choice, you then click ‘download’, the appliance will download in the background and install itself into the rack when it is done. Alright, so I guess that’s two clicks…

Open Source and Paid

A word of warning: Untangle has an Open-Source and paid category of appliances. They are all listed together on the left, but you can download all the freely available apps in a package by downloading the ‘Open Source Package’ at the top of the left-hand pane (the picture above doesn’t show it, since I had already downloaded it). Once this is done, all the free appliances will show up with an ‘install’ link instead of ‘more info’. Kind of an easy way to separate the two.

Of course, the Open-Source apps aren’t quite as nice as the paid versions in some cases, but they aren’t anything to sneeze at either.

Hardware layout:

In my setup, the PCs are connected to the NetGear switch, which is plugged into the internal interface on the Untangle box. The external interface is then plugged into the Comcast cable modem.

Kiosks, those dirty little computers…

Like I mentioned before, we have a few kiosks here at work, and their primary focus is to log on to our patient portal, fill out some surveys, and perhaps log into the patient’s webmail to retrieve some important information from our system.

As far as the kiosk OS configuration goes, another of our technicians had installed the Microsoft Windows SteadyState software on them, which essentially “freezes” the configuration, disallowing anyone from making any changes to the system (akin to Deepfreeze) upon system restart. If you run public computers, you should check it out.

These PCs are connected to a shared Comcast Internet connection, which are not connected to our production network in any way, so as such, they are not part of our system-wide policies or filters (or firewall, for that matter).

Now, these computers are pretty safe, since they are running with a SteadyState configuration – however, there is still the problem of potential misuse by the occasional child-of-a-patient-waiting-in-the-lobby scenario.

Web filter

For the purposes of this post, I’ll chat a little about the ‘Web Filter’ appliance, which was the primary reason for our test at work.

Our Untangle box is replacing the D-Link router that was previously configured (basically acting as a DHCP server and rudimentary firewall). We configured Untangle so that we were running a DHCP server and set the internal interface to bridge to the external interface (set for a dynamic address to be assigned by Comcast’s connection).

After that, we installed the Open-Source Web Filter appliance (and a few others!).

Now, let me say that the Open Source Web Filter is pretty no-frills, but it will do exactly what some people want; global blocking of websites. With that said, you can specify certain categories you wish to block or merely log – you know, the usual suspects: gambling, social networking, pornography, hacking, etc. You can also specify sites in particular you wish to allow or block.

In the regular Open-Source version, you can’t block or allow certain people by groups or username, but you can do it by IP address. To me, this isn’t realistically feasible for most shops, as they are typically DHCP, but perhaps blocking by range may work…

On a side note, there is an AD Connector appliance you can install to aid with user policy mapping, but it isn’t free, so alas, I couldn’t really speak to this. Some people may really need this so there is true auditing capability, but then again, many businesses might be OK with just simple blocking (as long as the stuff is being blocked, right?).

Quick test: Network admin vs. pre-adolescent boy or ‘tweaking the settings right away’

As with any web filtering tool, there is some logging available, which is a necessity to review in your early implementation phase so you can tweak the settings accordingly. In my case, I had to block ‘www.freeonlinegames.com’. So, you’ll see that while the built-in filters are good, they aren’t 100%…as such, you may want to review them occasionally to look for anything that slips through the cracks.

When I saw that the freeonlinegames website was being passed, I took a quick trip by the kiosks, and noticed that yep – there was a slouching 10-year old boy happily tapping away on the keyboard; playing online games in our lobby. A quick trip back downstairs, a click on the the ‘block lists’ tab and I had him locked out within a minute.

Heh.

Ok, stupid network admin power trip aside, it was reassuring that we can indeed block sites as necessary. Not only does this protect our overall image (who wants to see kids playing games in the lobby of an Orthopedic clinic? Let’s not even think about the nasty websites they might click on and leave on the screen), but it also protects our patient’s privacy.

In addition to the Web-Filter, we installed the firewall, intrusion protection, protocol control (block instant messaging and more), attack blocker and reports appliances. I’ve not been able to fully explore these, but one interesting appliance of note was the Open VPN (set up site-to-site VPNs with two Untangle boxes?)…

So, if you are a small IT shop finding it hard to leverage your favor with the boss to approve the budget for a firewall, web/spam filter or other niche appliances, Untangle might be your answer. At the very least, you can use it to show the benefit of having such a device on your network and get those dollars approved for either the paid appliances or something bigger. At the very least, you can breathe new life into an older PC that may work just fine, but is otherwise sitting around!

Do you use Untangle? If so, let us know in the commments!

Free IT certification study guides available from Geeks are Sexy

2009-08-29T13:39:00.004-05:00

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2009/08/28/special-offer-free-it-certification-study-guide-bundles-and-practice-exams/

Now, I know I've not posted for awhile (many apologies). The fact I've not posted is due to my overwhelming work load and baby duty as of late. However, I had to pass this along to you all...

Kiltak over at Geeks are Sexy has posted an offering of IT certification study guides including Cisco, Network+, Security+, Windows Sharepoint and more!

Even if you aren't studying for certifications, this might be good information to have on hand. Download them today and add them to your "e-Library".

Via [GAS]

Host your own secure file website for your small business: Accellion Green EX Virtual Appliance

2009-07-30T07:00:00.004-05:00

Accellion Green EX

http://www.accellion.com/news/09-17-2008.html

If you work in a small office and have needs to transfer large (or small) files securely over the Internet, then you might find that this isn’t a problem that is easily solved – especially if the sensitive or private data is involved.

The problem:

John from Finance wants to send out critical financial data through email to an auditor off-site. No problem, you say…”we can zip that up with AES-256 bit encryption and a password.” However, you find out that the file is just a smidge over your accepted attachment threshold of 20Mb.

Solution(s):

You could do one of (but not limited to) the following:

Set up a higher threshold for your local email user to allow the attachment to go through – however, you still might be limited on the other side by acceptable incoming sizes…Not to mention how much they will despise you for hanging their email client while the message is downloaded.

Use a publicly available file transfer service and hope that there aren’t any nefarious hacker types that control that server and do what they will with your data (encrypted or no, I’m not willing to take the chance).

Set up a secure file attachment server on your network that will house your files for you and remote users would log into the server to download – all the while, upload and download statistics are logged for your administrator to keep handy in case of an audit.

The Accellion Green EX Virtual Appliance is a Linux-based server appliance which runs in VMWare (either ESX/i or Server flavors) and requires hardly any configuration whatsoever to get running…basically, you need to log into the Linux console and set the IP, subnet, gateway, local hostname and mail server IP. There are some other options to configure, but this will get you going.

The process works like this:

You or an admin logs into the administration console for Accellion and configure users through the ‘Manage’ option which sends out invitation emails to your users (limited to one domain name). The user logs in, changes their default password, configures some optional settings and then they are ready to go!

Sending an email from Accellion is as simple as clicking on the ‘Send File’ link. The rest of the interface is pretty much the same as any web-based email program. One major downside here, though – there is no facility for saving frequently used addresses, although you can use the file manager to resend attachments again.

Note: When you attach a file to send, it doesn’t actually upload to the Accellion appliance until you click the ‘Send’ button.

When you receive a secure email via Accellion, the content looks like this:

Notice that you have a limited time (this feature is configurable) to download the file.

Your recipient will receive an email like above, and if they have never downloaded a file from you, they will need to create an account on the server and generate a verification code to log in.

Once the attachment is downloaded, you will receive a notice. Nice!

The server console has some additional options that will enable you to tweak it a bit, but there’s nothing that will allow you to brand it with your own logo. Also, you cannot have people on the outside create logons to send files to you internally (they will have to get their own Accellion Green appliance!).

If you do host this for users on the outside, you are going to need an external IP and DNS entry so remote users can easily get to the system. Also, you will want to purchase a secure SSL certificate and apply it to the box – this is easily done through the admin console. Otherwise, users will get an unverified certificate message when attaching (they can still download attachments).

Requirements:

VMWare ESX/i 3.0 or Server 2.0 (both ESXi and Server are freely available)
50-70Gb (expanding volume) on VMWare host
1Gb virtual memory allocated
600Mb space for Accellion Appliance download

Caveats:

Limited to 25 email accounts
No AD integration
No company branding
Outside users cannot utilize Accellion to send you files

Overall, this is a very useful tool for any network administrator that needs to supply a large file securely (and to lessen the burden on your mail server!).

Accellion does provide a more advanced and robust version of it’s appliance (both in hardware and software forms hosted remotely or locally) which allows you to integrate Accellion into your LDAP environment, provide custom branding, remote login account creations for unsolicited file transfers to your domain, and much more.

☆ Pixel Delicioso ☆ [del.icio.us]

2009-07-27T05:30:00-07:00

Delicious Pixel ★ Icons, Wallpapers, Docks

Announcement: DriverMax free is now severely limited

2009-07-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

Well, it was a good run; DriverMax, my favorite application to download/export drivers has now gone (almost completely) the way of the payware model, and has severely limited their free offering by presenting free users with a counter delay for downloading the driver that you need, ala RapidShare free. Not only that, but DriverMax is now only granting free users to no more than '2 driver downloads per day'.

So, if you are building up a new computer and really need drivers, guess what? It will probably take you a few days to do it with DriverMax.

The download delay I can understand, but the limiting of downloads? Hmmm. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that not everyone can support the freeware model - but there are ways of doing things with advertisers that can keep your freeware offering afloat (case in point: Spiceworks). So a big 'WOW' from me, this was quite a surprise to me when I attempted to update a tablet PC I was working on.

Overall, I have been extremely happy with DriverMax over the years, preferring it to all other driver backup and download utilities , but now it seems that we budget-conscious users must carry on and find a new solution that will bring us our drivers - Me? I'll probably move to RadarSync.

One small ray of light: DriverMax may still be a good solution for backing up and importing your drivers, so it isn't totally useless as a freeware tool...*sigh*

Announcement: Spiceworks 4.0 is out!

2009-06-22T07:00:00.007-05:00

I would have posted this on Friday last week, but I was way too busy at work!

In any case,I had the privilege of attending a Spiceworks 4.0 web conference on Thursday that went over some of the new features of SW 4.0.

This is certainly VERY exciting news! I installed 4.0 on friday, and have been loving the smoother interface, and the responsiveness overall. Nice job guys!

Side note: I also LOVE the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference in the screenies...

Serve Your Users with the IT User Portal! Wish you had an intranet to serve your users’ IT needs? The Spiceworks IT user portal is just that! Customize it with your company’s logo and colors Drag and drop content to format the layout to your liking Include info like contact details, maintenance schedules & newsfeeds! Add knowledge articles and FAQs
Run the Spiceworks Help Desk with Exchange 2007 Ready for some great news? The Spiceworks help desk now supports Exchange 2007! Get tickets and send email using your Microsoft 2007 Exchange server Use Exchange 2007 over protocols like POP or SMTP
Loop In Relevant Parties with cc: on Help Desk Tickets Working a ticket that requires someone else to be in the loop? Now you can cc: others on any Spiceworks ticket. Get approvals without drafting a separate approval request Make sure your boss knows a touchy topic is being addressed
Work Faster with a Streamlined User Interface Want to work more swiftly in Spiceworks? Our cleaner user interface makes it easier to find things! See tabs and detail views up top Do common tasks, like creating a ticket in one-quick-click See more of your tickets without having to scroll down - the new interface is now optimized for higher screen resolutions Follow new cookie crumb trails to help you cruise thru Spiceworks
Watch Videos via the Spiceworks TV Widget Checked out the full line up on Spiceworks TV? The handy Spiceworks TV widget will make sure Spiceworks videos are a part of your regularly scheduled program! Watch Spiceworks tutorials, webinars, IT comedy clips & more Access Spiceworks videos directly from your dashboard
Manage Spiceworks Updates in Your Subscription Center Did you know that you can control all the communications you receive from Spiceworks? The new subscription center allows you to: See and manage all your Spiceworks subscriptions Explore the variety of communications that Spiceworks has to offer including product & company updates, partner offers, survey opportunities & more Opt to receive a daily or weekly email summary of the Spiceworks Community posts that you care about most …and remember, when you opt to receive these emails, you're doing your part to help keep Spiceworks free!
See Your Set Up with Network Map^BETA Want to see a visual layout of all your network elements and how they inter-relate...Spiceworks network map^BETA makes it possible for select layer 3 devices! See how your devices are connected View how much bandwidth each of them is consuming Identify users consuming the bulk of your bandwidth in network “hotspots”
Triage Windows Events with ID Collaboration Wondering what to do about a particular Windows event you came across in your logs? Now Spiceworks has Windows Event logs! Includes a “look up” link that takes you directly to a description of the issue Connects you to all other Spiceworks users who have dealt with that ID before
Tweet from Spiceworks with Twitter Integration Tweet much? Now you can “tweet” from Spiceworks using our new Twitter Integration! Tell the Spiceworks Community what you're doing while you’re doing IT “cc: Twitter” to update your Twitter account directly from Spiceworks Have a Spiceworks ‘swoosh’ appear next to your tweets to show your followers that Spiceworks is where “everything IT” happens!
Extend What You Can Do with New Plugins Want to get even more functionality (& fun!) out of Spiceworks? Grab one of the many plugins that Spiceworks users and partners alike have created to extend the value you get from Spiceworks. Put your user portal in your local language with the 'user portal translator' plugin Get a laugh with the Daily Dilbert comic plugin Compare how many MS licenses you’ve bought vs. how many Spiceworks detects (no worries, Spiceworks keeps your info private!) with the the Microsoft License Organizer plugin Archive 5 email accounts for free, then use the LiveOffice Mail Archive plugin to set up and monitor the status of your email archives
Manage Requests On-the-Go with “Tickets Anywhere” Wish you could work on your tickets while you’re out to lunch? Now you can with "Tickets Anywhere!" Work tickets from a mobile device as though you were sitting at your desk Send an email to your help desk - handy hashmark commands let you create, respond, reassign, classify and close tickets

Look cool? Then get Spiceworks here:

Podcasts on your BlackBerry or iPhone: Stitcher

2009-06-16T07:00:00.005-05:00

Stitcher
http://stitcher.com/home.php

I'm a BlackBerry user - since it has become more central in my every day life, I'm finding that I am looking for a wider array of applications that I never had the opportunity to use on my old 8703 (RIP). As such, I'm using it more and more for its multimedia capabilities. I'm a daily user of Slacker radio, I download Revision3 Internet shows to my video player, and my Storm serves as my MP3/Audio player of choice - - only wish I had a bit more space, but we'll get there soon I think...!

I really use my netbook for writing extended emails, documents, Facebook and some quick surfing. Other daily tasks have now been delegated to my Storm.

In any case - one thing that was noticably missing on my BlackBerry was a decent podcast application. Viigo is more than adequate for my RSS needs - but I'm missing my fix of Escape Pod (Sci Fi Short Fiction), Pseudopod (Horror Short Fiction), Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (Science), and my Scott Sigler (Independent Horror Fiction).

Stitcher is an application made for BlackBerry and iPhone which allows me to quickly browse and select podcasts for a quick listen.

Stitcher works like it advertises - find a podcast in the directory, allowing you to 'favorite' them. I can't say too much more about the application, as it just works as advertised. Iphone users, your mileage may vary, but I assume it works similarly with exception to running in the background (thanks to a multi-tasking limitation imposed on the iPhone pre 3.0 OS).

I do wish that Stitcher put an option on the global menu that allowed me to stop or pause (or close) Stitcher from anywhere I might be on my BlackBerry (say someone calls on the deskphone, and I need to mute it quickly).

Beside Stitcher and the forthcoming update to Viigo (podcast feature is still in alpha stages), what other free apps are there for the BlackBerry?

Likes:

You can listen to your podcast while doing other things (at least on the BlackBerry, can't vouch for iPhone) - major
Easy interface, no mess - major
Good quality audio - major

Dislikes:

Can't see a way of playing an older podcast from the same source - major
Podcast choices are limited to those that sign up with the Stitcher service as a partner - major
Occasional pauses in audio - medium
Can't pause or stop audio unless in Stitcher app - medium
Would like to see video streaming as well - minor

Icon Archive - 24,100+ free icons, buddy icons, xp icons, vista icons, desktop icons, aim icons [del.icio.us]

2009-06-12T16:03:20-07:00

The Icon Archive is a categorized collection of high quality desktop & web icon sets. We currently host over 24,100 icons in 856 sets from 204 icon authors. Icons can be used for Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), Macintosh (OSX, OS) and Linux (as PNG Files). Copyright of icons belong to original authors. Public usage license can be found on each icon set page.

Easy as pie virtual drive mounting via ISO: Virtual CloneDrive 5.4.3.2

2009-06-11T07:00:00.006-05:00

Virtual CloneDrive 5.4.3.2
http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

When you start moving into the world of virtualization or disc archiving, you come upon a day when all of the sudden, it just doesn't make sense to have all those discs lying around. Also, if you are working on a virtual server/workstation, and need to mount some ISO files within Windows, you need something ridiculously easy.

Enter SlySoft (used to be 'Elaborate Bytes '- but development is being continued by SlySoft) 'Virtual CloneDrive'. This little program makes attaching to ISO files easy as a double-click. You can attach up to as many drive letters as you have remaining (after taking into account attached network and physical disks)...

What makes Virtual CloneDrive stand out is the pure ease of attaching to an ISO image. The first one is simplest; just double-click and go.

The next ISO you double-click switches out the first mounted image for the new one - but leaves the old ISO path in the recent history for Virtual CloneDrive, making it easy to pick your drive letter, then mount an ISO image from the listing.

The summary of Virtual CloneDrive says "Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive..." - but you can mount any supported image type made by any disc image creation program.

Features

Supports all common image formats such as ISO, BIN, CCD (also DVD, IMG and UDF - Rob)
Supports up to 8 virtual drives at the same time
Easy to use - just double-click an image file to mount as a drive
Virtual CloneDrive is freeware, you may use it at no cost.

System Requirements

An IBM-compatible personal computer with a minimum 500 MHz Pentium-class microprocessor (1 GHz recommended) and 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP/XP64/VISTA/VISTA64
If you use Windows 2000 or Windows XP you must be an administrator to install Virtual CloneDrive

(I love that they say "IBM-compatible" - that's old school!)

What I really liked was the fact you did not have to restart your computer after installing the software, much like you do with another of my favorites: Alcohol 52% (or Deamon Tools).

Likes

Easy to use, this couldn't be any simpler
No rebooting required
Runs on 64-bit Operating Systems
Quick

Dislikes

Would like to see the software automatically mount subsequent ISO files that were double-clicked, rather than mount them as the first drive and list the others as 'ready to mount'
Would like to see it have the ability to mount more types of image files, similar to Alcohol 52%.

Easy! No spills and no mess!

Alternatives:

Need to make an ISO?

VisioCafe - Technical Visio Stencils [del.icio.us]

2009-06-04T07:43:35-07:00

Tons of freely available visio stencils for system architects, network admins, or really geeky folks.

Prey = Software to keep track of your stolen laptop [del.icio.us]

2009-06-01T11:13:20-07:00

Prey helps you find your stolen laptop by sending timed reports to your email with a bunch of information of its whereabouts. This includes the general status of the computer, a list of running programs and active connections, fully-detailed network and wifi information, a screenshot of the running desktop and — in case your laptop has an integrated webcam — a picture of the thief.

Article: Panda Cloud Antivirus installed. Ok Cloud, fix me up.

2009-06-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Not too long ago, Lifehacker published a post regarding a new free AV program from Panda – called ‘Panda Cloud Antivirus’. Currently in beta, this new AV is on the fast track to revolutionizing the way we think of AV programs as intrusive, bloated, sometimes complex apps that slow down our computer and break seemingly benign programs.

This new idea of theirs seems like a cool concept; Rather than having to keep downloading virus and malware definitions, Skynet-er, I mean the ‘Cloud’ determines what is and isn’t dangerous to your computer, and does all of this on the fly (and in the background).

*Read the Panda Cloud Antivirus blog post on the mentality behind the Cloud scanning technology.

A snippet:

One of the main pillars of Panda Cloud Antivirus is its real-time use of Panda Collective Intelligence, which is an online from-the-cloud system that automates the entire malware protection cycle; collecting new samples, analyzing, categorizing, creating detection and disinfection routines and delivering the protection to each node.

Thanks to this approach users do not need to worry about updating signature files anymore. In fact, detection of millions and millions of different malware variants is no longer limited by the size of a signature database, as Collective Intelligence can hold literally unlimited number of detections without consuming any memory on the users’ PC.

All your base are belong to us…in the Cloud.

Very cool. Great idea – and I hope it works out for them. The idea that malicious files will be analyzed and categorized on the fly by something greater than my PC that isn’t necessarily human is intriguing…let’s see where it takes us a year from now.

What about your preference for Avast?

If you’ve been paying attention to my posts whenever I speak of AV, you’ll note that I’ve always been a fan of Avast! antivirus. But, that doesn’t mean that I’m an AV elitist; my netbook has Avira installed and at work I have AVG corporate installed. Also, I typically give AVG free to my home clients as they don’t know what to do when Avast! prompts for a renewal serial number. So, I hope you can tell that I have an open mind.

Panda CAV: First look – where’s the beef?

One thing I noticed right away is that there is an obvious lack of buttons and menus when you examine the AV console. I think this is a good thing…right? What about all the doohickies and whatsits for us technical types? Where’s all of our buttons? Panda CAV is intended to be as simple as possible, so I guess for you button mashers, there’s an unfinished game of Diablo calling for you.

My minor gripe just as well might be the true end-user appeal of the Panda Cloud AV program. I mean, think of it – it’s a perfect fit with parents and other tech-deficient relatives who don’t know what to do when they are prompted with a pop-up box asking if they would like to block some program that they did not install nor click on. So, if the computer is being cleaned and protected without user interruption, then I say point goes to Panda.

What about the beta, any real gripes?

Since I’ve not run Panda CAV long enough to talk about how well it works, I guess I have just a couple minor cosmetic issues upon first glance:

When selecting a full system scan, ‘Scan all my computer’ is a little unwieldy as far as a phrase goes…kinda like ‘all your base are belong to us’, right? Maybe Panda should re-word that to ‘Scan all of my computer’, or ‘Scan entire computer’, etc. Petty, I know. However, think of it this way; The hallmark of malware posing as an actual AV program is bad grammar or english.

Note the upper right-hand corner. ‘Correct’ is an odd word to pick that really means ‘Clean’ or ‘Uninfected’ or ‘No problems detected’.

The interface could be spruced up a little bit…I dunno, it still kinda reminds me of one of those fake AV programs (Internet Antivirus 2009 and it’s variants).

One cool feature of the Panda CAV (yep, I’m tired of typing Cloud Antivirus) is the ability to hit up the ‘Recycle Bin’ and recover a program that Panda may have misidentified. You can get to it by clicking the lower right-hand corner of the console.

Another cool feature? Your system doesn’t trudge along like a drunk tortoise stuck in a tar pit while an AV scan is running.

So – while this isn’t really a review of the program itself and how it performs, it is more of a ‘first-installed impressions’ type of blog post. I will most likely be installing this into a virtual PC session and see how I fare while surfing with the goal of getting infected…stay tuned.

Check out the highly effective video (if you can get past the nasal voice of the narrator!):

New theme and functionality for CFJ

2009-05-29T00:44:00.004-05:00

After a long time using the old 3-column theme (can't remember where I got that from now...), I've decided to mix things up a bit and install a new theme that is a little cleaner and overall, simpler to use.

I've added a few functions to the site:

the 'CFJ Navigator', which should give readers the ability to find out which posts are hot, editor's picks, browse the comments, etc.
star rating system - readers can now rate articles based on preferences
new comment system - this should help block against spam while making commentary a bit easier overall, especially for anonymous readers
Returning to the Google search bar. Seems to be quicker than the Lijit search, and I wanted to keep it as consistent as possible with regards to appearance and functionality

I'm hoping that overall, the site is easier to use, and just more effective for you to find the information that you want.

I do have some minor tweaks to take care of (bullet listings - fixed, quotes, etc.), but otherwise, it is pretty much in its final form.

Let me know what you think!

Rob (maximillian_x)

Limited offer: Techsmith SnagIt 7.2.5 available for free (again!)

2009-05-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

Remember way back in '07 when Techsmith was giving away its 7.2.5 version of SnagIt for free?

Well, it seems that TechSmith is once again offering the 7.2.5 version at no charge, thanks to 'Covermount' (not sure what that is, exactly). Even though 9.1 is the most current release, this version is perfectly capable. Download it and try it out - you won't be disappointed. Get your free serial number here.

Also, if you upgrade to 9.1 immediately, you can get the it for 50% off the usual purchase price (standard price is $49.95).

Interestingly enough - the page says that 8 is the latest release, but the confirmation email states that indeed, 9.1 is the most current version.

Download SnagIt 7.2.5 here

Create easy polls to determine best time & locations for get-togethers [Web]: Doodle

2009-05-27T07:00:00.004-05:00

Doodle
http://www.doodle.com

One of the frustrating things about setting up meetings with others is the fact that not everyone is on the same calendaring system you are. This being the case, you can’t quickly determine if a person is free during a time you want to schedule your meeting. Sure, you could create a shared Google calendar, but if your meeting attendees aren’t Google users (gasp!) then you need to find something that caters to the lowest common denominator.

I came across Doodle about a month back, and it is elegant in its simplicity. Basically, if you want to schedule a meeting, but don’t know when is the best time for your attendees, you can pick a number of dates/times and have your buddies pick which date would work best for them. No membership is required to use Doodle (either for the administrator/creator or the recipient).

You create the parameters for the poll/meeting schedule, then pick some options (limit one choice per user, for example), allow comments, etc. – and bam! You’re done. Send out the link to the poll provided to you by Doodle, and the site will do the rest.

When a recipient comments on or answers a poll, you will get a notification – very easy! Doodle also provides a quick summary of all poll results.

I can’t tell you how much schedule-wrangling I saved myself by using Doodle. Again, the idea is ridiculously simple, but Doodle executes perfectly. This is one service you need to check out.

Free phone conferencing with up to 150 callers: FreeConference.com

2009-05-19T07:00:00.003-05:00

https://www.freeconference.com/

Small/medium businesses rejoice – there is a service that can provide you with the means to create large conference calls with very little cost to you (the cost of a long distance phone call).

About a month back, I had to schedule a teleconference for our Microsoft Licensing meeting. Just getting these folks scheduled was the hard part, but then I had to figure out how I was going to get three of our resources in on the same conference call (our phone system only allowed two other join-in callers to our existing conference).

So, after a bit of searching, I found FreeConference.com.

FreeConference.com offers a variety of services (some paid, which include 800 numbers - - good for those who do not want to charge their clients with a long distance phone call), but the one that grabbed my attention was the free ‘Web-Scheduled Standard’ offering:

Maximum size:
150 Callers

Maximum time:
4 hours

Dial-in Number:
Long distance number assigned during the online scheduling process

Access Codes:
Participant Access Code assigned by us or created by you

Organizer Access Code assigned by us, changeable on the 'SETTINGS' page

Begins:
When first caller enters the conference ‡

Ends:
When last caller exits the conference ‡

Service Features

Schedule & manage conferences via Web

Advanced security features

Real-time conference management controls

Automated conference e-mail invitations

Receive RSVPs with reply comments

Outlook and Lotus calendaring

Crystal clear all-digital connections

Secure and private

24-hour automated access to Web-Scheduled conference system

We had our phone conference, audio quality was clear as a bell and we actually went over our scheduled time by about 10 minutes…but was not disconnected.

FreeConference.com offers the following services:

Toll-free calls using the Web-Scheduled Premium 800 + web conferencing for 10¢/minute, with free recording - Pay only 10¢ a minute for toll free conference calls.

Reservationless Premium 800 – Same as above, but with privileges to create impromptu 800 conference calls.

Web-Scheduled Standard + FC Select (Free) – Schedule and manage conference calls at any time for free.

Reservationless Standard (Free) – Make conference calls anytime for free without scheduling.

Also, there is an Outlook Add-in which can allow you to use Outlook’s scheduling capabilities to interface with FreeConference’s service. However, I could not get this to work (Outlook 2007 problem?) - - update...I had to re-enable the plugin under 'Help' > 'Disabled items'. Once re-enabled, it now works.

Outlook Conference Manager Benefits:

Embeds conference information into your Outlook meeting invitation for automatic forwarding once meeting is scheduled
Meeting subject and dial-in number populated into email header for easy access
Integrated with your existing Outlook contact database
Allows you to check availability of participants while scheduling (if enabled within Outlook)
Allows full recurring meeting scheduling and unlimited future scheduling
Automatically adds scheduled meeting and information into all participant’s Outlook calendar for easy access from desktop or synced smart phone

While I’m not sure what the revenue model is for FreeConference, I hope they stick around.

For more details, check out the quick reference guide.

Autodesk Project Dragonfly [del.icio.us]

2009-05-27T06:50:57-07:00

Free 3d rendering tool to help you design layouts to your house, office, etc. Comes with a vast array of 3d library objects.

Freeware Archiving Programs

2009-05-14T07:00:00.003-05:00

There is quite an assortment of archiving utilities to help you archive a number of pictures, documents, etc. into a single file, suitable for emailing or storing long term on a backup drive.

This relates somewhat to an article about replacing paid applications with freeware alternatives I wrote a long time back:

On a related and timely note, I have been tasked with uninstalling un-licensed WinZIP from our corporate workstations and replacing it with IZArc.

Like my company, many organizations have installed WinZIP on their corporate images because up until version 10, WinZIP never stopped working after the initial 45-day trial period was up. Granted, an annoying nag-screen would appear, but otherwise, you could easily use WinZIP FAR beyond the eval period with full functionality, even though you were blatantly opposing the license agreement. Many still to this day are using it, believing it is freeware (it never was).

Here’s a quick summary of some of the most popular archiving tools out there (note that this does not include utilities that are programs that include archiving as a secondary function like Total Commander).

I myself prefer IZArc…what’s your favorite?

IZArc

Version: 3.81 (4.0 now in beta)

Opens: (47 file types) 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO

Archives to: (11 file types) .7z, .bh, .bza, .tar.bz2, .cab, .jar, .lha, .tar, .tar.gz, .zip, .yz1

Supports encryption? Yes (AES 128, 192, 256, ZIP 2.0)

Command-Line version: Yes

Portable? Yes

Other notes: Skinnable interface, free for corporate use.

JZip

Opens: (15 file types) .zip, .tgz, .rar, .tar, .7z, .bz2, .iso, .cab, .arj, .tpz, .gz, .z, .gzip, .taz, .tbz

Archives to: (5 file types) .zip, .7z, .gZip, .bZip2, .tar

Portable? No

Other Notes: free for corporate use (without add-ons), MSI version coming soon.

PeaZIP

Opens: (32 file types – 85+ if using plugins) ACE, ARJ, CAB, CHM, COMPOUND (MSI, DOC, XLS, PPT), CPIO, ISO, Java (JAR, EAR, WAR), Linux (DEB, PET/PUP, RPM, SLP), LHA/LZH, LZMA, Mac (DMG/HFS), NSIS, Open Office files, PAK/PK3/PK4, RAR, SMZIP, U3P, UDF, WIM, XAR, XPI, Z/TZ

Archives to: (10 file types) 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP

Portable? No

Other Notes: Free for corporate use, interface uses drop downs a bit more than the other offerings. Not as ‘WinZIP’-like in this regard.

7Zip

Opens: (18 file formats) ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z

Archives to: (5 file types) 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR

Supports encryption? Yes (AES 256)

Command-Line version: Yes

Portable? Yes

Freeware Tools and Utilities for Windows [del.icio.us]

2009-05-19T11:26:53-07:00

Unique collection of freeware utilities and freeware password recovery tools

The Manuals - Free Manuals Online [del.icio.us]

2009-05-13T05:40:20-07:00

A handy search tool to find a manual for a huge variety of products. If it can't be found on the site, 'the manuals' will find you a link from another site that does.

The Home Computer Freeware List: Updated 05/08/09

2009-05-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

Subscribe to CFJ

Rob's great freeware list (aka "toolbox" for building a Windows-based (I know, I know :) ) computer for as little money as possible.

Note that this is a list that I recommend for every baseline installation...I will recommend various specialty applications over the course of my musings, but this is something that I believe everyone should install.

Enjoy - every product here is one that I use or have used. :)

System cleanup utility (good for routine system maintenance) - CCleaner, nCleaner Second - both are quality, but I would say CCleaner is a more intuitive to use. You can do a lot of damage with nCleaner Second if you are not careful!

Defragmenting your hard disk - JKDefrag (for more of you techie folks), Defraggler - Windows defragment is OK, but JKDefrag is quicker, and does a lot more optimization (move large files to the end of the volume, for example). Defraggler is a bit more user-friendly when it comes to appearance. Both are quality products.

Create PDFs - PDFCreator - Creates a new printer in your control panel, and allows you to convert anything that you print to a PDF.

Read PDFs - Foxit PDF reader - Nice non-resource intensive PDF reading software.

Antivirus - Avast 4.8 Home, AVG 8.0, - You should NEVER surf without some form of AV installed. Avast! is nice because it can scan your system for viruses while the screen saver is active, and protects your PC against multiple vectors. Honorable mentions: Avira AntiVir. Want free AV for a Windows server? Use ClamWin (no real-time scanner, so you will have to run scheduled scans, but it works VERY well).

Spyware Protection - Ad-Aware 2008 (not a real-time scanner), ThreatFire, SuperAntiSpyware - Spyware sucks, and these tools do a great job of cleaning them up. I would recommend installing a combination of these utilities, using one to clean-up after the other.

removed from the list: SpywareTerminator

IE Spy/Malware Protection - IE-SpyAds - This will keep 99% of activex components from being installed on your system through IE. If you are going to use IE, you should use it with *ahem* protection.

Firewall - Comodo - Very configurable - looks sharp, excellent reviews (replacing Kerio).

Remote Control (Technical Support) - CrossLoop - This one is great for consultants and other at-home tech folks - totally secure and SO easy to use. Crossloop makes remote controlling mom's computer a dream. CrossLoop now supports Mac!

Remote Control (Extending your office) - Logmein - Access your computer from a secure (256-bit encrypted) connection. You don't need someone on the other end to approve your connection (like Crossloop).

Screenshot Utility - FastStone Capture 5.3. If you can find it, use it. Newer versions are not free. Can't find it? Use Easy Capture. Are you an advanced user? Screen Captor is superior to both utilities.

VPN - Hamachi - Connect two disparate networks together with little trouble. Great for hooking up with your buddies for online gaming, or home "family" support over the Internet.

File Recovery - PC Inspector File Restore, Recuva - Did you accidentally delete your files from your digital camera? Use this to restore it. Good for system drives as well.

Internet Browsing - FireFox - Tabbed browsing, all sorts of great add-ons available, spyware/popup blocker, best of all NO activex support.

Email Client - Thunderbird - Built in spam protection, RSS reader and more.

FTP Client - FileZilla, WinSCP - Secure FTP, save your sessions, easy drag & drop interface.

Office Productivity - Microsoft Live Office (online), Google Docs (online), Open Office (local install). The non-MS apps are MS Office compatible. Text, Spreadsheet, Presentation software -These will do for 90% of your low to middle of the road users.

Zip Archiving - IZArc - New to the list is 'IZArc', recommended by fellow freeware addict, Carputers. I have to agree. If you use WinZip, then you can use IZArc. Excellent interface, supports the widest amount of archive formats, great features, just great all around!

Keep track of startup programs - Sysinternals AutoRuns - Excellent tool to discover what the heck is running at startup - definitely for advanced users. Can produce a CSV file for viewing later (or to post to online support forums), etc. VERY thorough. You can use this to help you clean up malware that is slowing down your system. Also recommended is Hijack This, which features a huge user-community.

Graphics Editing - The Gimp - EXCELLENT freebie editor with a lot of built-in effects and layering capability. If you like the Photoshop interface, you can try GimpShop. Want something simpler? Use Paint.net.

Image Touch Ups, Photo Processing - Picasa - Easy to use program that can help you catalog, view, burn, and touch-up photographs. Also, you can use Picasa to upload photos to your blog, and submit them to online digital image printing services. A digital camera's best friend.

Image Thumbnail Viewer - The classic, Irfanview, my personal favorite - FastStone Viewer and another popular one, XNView.

CD Burning - CD Burner XP Pro - Supports burning from/to ISO image files, audio CD's, DVDs, etc. - Especially nice if you have a burner, but no longer have the OEM burning software that came with it. Other quality apps are Infra Recorder and Express Burner Free.

Backup software - Syncback - Backup to/from an FTP location, compress and encrypt data, supports directory synchronization, and much, much more.

DVD viewing (video) - VLC Media Player - Play your DVD/VCD/MPEG videos from a single player. Works GREAT! You can use VLC to watch DVDs without re-installing the OEM DVD software. You can also use it to convert videos (transcode).

Video conversion - Any Video Converter Free. Convert a video file to a myriad of different formats, great for copying videos to your IPod, Zune, or other personal media player.

removed from the list: Media Converter SA, Super

Video codecs - K-Lite codec pack - this will enable your computer to play just about any video type out there.

RSS News Reader - Google Reader (online), FeedDemon NewsGator (which now will synchronize with Google Reader!) -Keep up with your online news and blogs (*ahem*, like this one?).

Multi-IM/chat client - Pidgin, and if you don't use IRC, then Digsby is for you!

More as I find 'em.

LDAP capable IM solution: OpenFire 3.4.6

2009-05-07T07:00:00.002-05:00

OpenFire 3.4.6

http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/index.jsp

My need for IM:

Recently, I have discovered the need to notify my users of system outages (um…email?). The Windows Messenger service is out of the question as it is hard to selectively broadcast messages, and you cannot keep a central log of your messages easily – or at least, not without some third-party solution keeping track for you. Not only that, but you can’t configure file transfer, perform voice chat or other more advanced functions.

Enter OpenFire, a Jabber/XMPP compatible IM server, and Spark, the chat client provided by Jive software (makers of OpenFire). I was completely flabbergasted by the capabilities that this free software could provide!

So, a quick list of features out of the box (and mind you, this is supposed to be a quick overview, so I may skip over some other features you might find handy):

SQL, MySQL, PostGreSQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, HSQLDB and embedded database compatible
LDAP compatible authentication
Assortments of plugins available
Supports other Jabber clients (besides ‘Spark’, the one that you can download from OpenFire’s website)
Extensive administration options
Broadcast capability
User groups
Import/Export user data
Configurable chat rooms

A quick look at the server information page

What caught my attention was the ability to authenticate my users via LDAP. This means that my users can log in with their Windows domain credentials and not be concerned with creating and/or remembering a new or different password. Nice!

Setup complexity: Low

If you are a sysadmin who is worth his or her salt, you should have absolutely no trouble setting this up within 5 minutes. If you aren’t terribly familiar with LDAP (and want to get this to work) or have some port magic you have to work, it could take you a little while longer to set up…but, out of the box, it only takes a few minutes to get going.

To set up OpenFire in my environment, I opted for the SQL server backend, for scalability and performance. I only needed to know the SQL administrative password for setup, then OpenFire did the rest.

Also, when I configured LDAP, I needed to know the DN for my administrative account (which would be authenticating my logons) and CN for where to pull my user accounts from. I used SysInternals’ AD Explorer to get this information quickly.

These users were imported into OpenFire from AD automatically.

The Spark client

For me, the awesomeness does not stop at the OpenFire server (and how ridiculously easy it is to set up), but I really like the Spark client as well.
The download is a bit hefty at 27Mb, but I assure you, it is a full-featured and robust client that has some great capabilities:
Easy file-transfer
Send screenshots quickly with the built-in screenshot snip tool
Voice chat
Avatar support
Invite-to conference

Now, some of these features can be disabled at the server level (like the file-transfer and avatar support), but for a support staff, you can see the benefits of having a screenshot snip tool!

What would be really nice is the ability to lock down the main Spark interface so that you could remove the ‘Accounts’ and ‘Advanced’ buttons…don’t want my users messing around, right?

Plugins

Some of the plugins available for the OpenFire server:

Asterisk-IM Openfire Plugin

Integration for Asterisk and Openfire.

Broadcast

Broadcasts messages to users.

Client Control

Controls clients allowed to connect and available features

Content Filter

Scans message packets for defined patterns

Email Listener

Listens for emails and sends alerts to specific users.

Fastpath Service

Support for managed queued chat requests, such as a support team might use.

Fastpath Webchat

Web based chat client for Fastpath.

IM Gateway

Provides gateway connectivity to the other public instant messaging networks

Monitoring Service

Monitors conversations and statistics of the server.

MotD (Message of the Day)

Allows admins to have a message sent to users each time they log in.

Packet Filter

Rules to enforce ethical communication

Presence Service

Exposes presence information through HTTP.

Registration

Performs various actions whenever a new user account is created.

Search

Provides support for Jabber Search (XEP-0055)

SIP Phone Plugin

Provides support for SIP account management

Subscription

Automatically accepts or rejects subsription requests

User Import Export

Enables import and export of user data

User Service

Allows administration of users via HTTP requests.

Oh, OpenFire, how do I love thee?

What next for me?

Next, I need to:

Develop an acceptable use policy
Figure out how to lock Spark/OpenFire down a bit more to prevent abuse
Discover proper deployment technique and pre-configure the client upon installation
Test out the ‘Support chat room’ plugin (IT support, anyone?)

Have you used OpenFire? Do you use a different IM solution at your job? What were your issues that you had to overcome in order to successfully deploy it in your organization?

If you aren’t an IT admin like myself – what do you think of the IM in your company? Is it useful? What don’t you like?

Get the skinny on various freeware reviews [web]: Appnews.net

2009-04-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

Coming at you from blogger Rarst (from Rarst.net) is a consolidated freeware review listing bringing you links from a few of the biggest freeware blogs out there like Freeware Genius, Rarst.net and Ghacks.net...

Great link summaries if you wanted to look at a single feed for all the good stuff!

Please check it out and support Rarst's efforts.

http://appnews.net/

System management akin to DameWare and Hyena: Purgos 3.0.249

2009-04-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

Purgos 3.0.249
http://www.softulz.net/

Have you ever used DameWare tools or SystemTools' Hyena products? They are GREAT paid system administration tools, essential for any network administrator to effectively support multiple users spanning different physical locations.

Purgos is a new tool to me (although it is at version 3!) which almost fills the freeware niche of "DameWare"-esque utilities in that you can quickly inventory a remote system, allows remote control via VNC or RDP, shows you quick device details, quick remote registry support and more.

Note that it is not nearly as clean as DameWare or Hyena, but it does approach those programs' level of usefulness when you need to get a quick connection to a remote computer.

With Purgos, you can quickly:

Determine OS, Service pack version
Remote control via RDP or VNC
Browse locally installed hard disks on remote computer
Filter computers/servers based upon various criteria
Group computers/servers
Run executables from remote station

Central inventory database

The main difference between Purgos and the aforementioned DameWare and Hyena products is that managed computers report into a central administration server via an installed agent, similar to SMS. That means you can view system details even when the computer is offline. Limited information is available on Purgos' website to determine exactly how the agent works...i.e. does it update statistics on a predetermined interval, or when the agent starts up?

The nice thing about a centralized database is that you can run a quick query showing how many managed computers you have where service pack 3 is installed, or how many computers have 512Mb of RAM.

Add computers to the Purgos console

You can add new computers to the console quickly via a couple different routes:

Single computer name/IP
Multiple computers via Active Directory import
Multiple computers via NTLM domain
Multiple computers via text file listing

A little refinement could be made...

It seems like the computer management console piece is a bit more refined than the 'server files' component. When I attempted to look at some of the properties of where the server files and folders where located, I get an error, but this is if no files have been dropped into the folder...

Also, it was not immediately clear what these folders are for, but more in-depth documentation hunting would probably help me out there.

There are a lot of cool features built into Purgos that I don't have time to review at this time (baby and all, right?), here's a couple interesting features:

Computer Management (Copy Files)

Section 2.4

An arbitrary set of files can be copied to one or more computers. The files that need to be copied to the server can be added to the servers file set at the time of copy or before.

Select the files or set of files from all files on the server to copy.

Computer Management (Snapshots)

Section 2.9

Snapshots are a way of capturing the configuration of a given system at a given time. Once two or more snapshots have been taken you can then compare them to analyze the differences. Snapshots can be scheduled to run on a scheduled basis or can be taken immediately the compare with an older snapshot.

Comparing snapshots consists of selecting the two points in time that you wish to compare and beginning the compare process . Once the compare process is complete you can view the specific details about the differences found.

I'd like to see the ability to run our own commands against a remote computer, much like Hyena's functionality. Also, I'd like to see remote printers that are installed...

If you get a chance to take a look at this, post your thoughts here.

Announcement: New freeware junkie added to my family!

2009-04-20T07:12:00.003-05:00

You've no doubt noticed my lack of posts lately (or the lessened frequency of them).

Well, it was for a great reason - we had been expecting a new child for the last couple of weeks and finally, after all the long waiting, young Patterson arrived on Monday April 13th at 12:48pm! He was 9 lbs 0 ounces and has a full head of hair (lucky!).

Hopefully as we get acclimated to the new baby in the house I will be able to post with more frequency once again.

I want to thank everyone for their well-wishes in advance, and promise you I will be back in full force soon!

Update: Spiceworks 4.0 coming in June

2009-04-07T07:00:00.001-05:00

Spiceworks, a personal favorite freebie of mine is slated for a 4.0 release in June.

Some of the new non-heartburn inducing spiciness (as mentioned in the 4.0 forums):

Network maps
Bulk-editing of objects
Removal of Glide support (not many people use it)
IE6 support dropped for reports and admin interface (end user GUI will still be supported)
Latest Ruby on Rails as a framework, resulting in faster operation
New end-user portal layout

In the meantime, if you don't know what Spiceworks is or want to know more about what it does, review this slideshow/video:

Spiceworks Intro

View more presentations from ground047.

My dream BlackBerry: Storm with Trackball

2009-03-31T13:11:00.003-05:00

I know this isn't a real BlackBerry, but it would be awesome.

You see, I absolutely love my Storm, but I don't like trying to accurately place a cursor or navigate web pages with the touchpad. Even with the mouse pointer 'emulator' that you can use on the browser, targeting a specific link, selecting text (ever try to do this inside of a text box on a web page?) is a frustrating affair.

So, I wanted to meld the trackball configuration of a Curve 8900 with the Storm 9530 and here's what I got.

RIM - Please make this for me!

How many of you Storm users would prefer a setup like this?

Online storage with a twist: DropBox Beta

2009-03-31T07:00:00.000-05:00

DropBox Beta
http://www.getdropbox.com/

A few weeks ago, my friend Kevin at work turned me onto DropBox as a way to upload/backup files and share them with others.

The whole online storage thing has been pretty overplayed in my opinion, but this service is a little different so I thought I would talk about it. I've definitely heard of DropBox, mind you, but I've never actually spent the time and actually tried it out. After Kevin showed me how he used it, I decided to give it a try (also, I told him I wouldn't post before he did on his blog).

Now, DropBox isn't like every other online storage service - - or at least not like the Microsoft SkyDrive service which I do use...DropBox works like this:

You sign up for service, install client utility on computer 'A'
Client utility creates 'My DropBox' folder under 'My Documents'
Client copies/synchronizes contents of My DropBox to your DropBox account
You install client utility on computer 'B'
Client brings all files down from your DropBox online account to your 'My DropBox' folder on this computer (B)
You change a file on Computer B, files get uploaded and then synchronized to Computer A as soon as the client utility connects from that computer

The files and folders inside your DropBox directory get a handy little sync indicator showing if the file has been uploaded or if it is pending upload to the online service. Nice!

Share your DropBox files

The beauty of DropBox is that you have the ability to share an individual file or a whole folder to a user. Simply right-click a file or folder under the 'My DropBox' directory to see the option.

You share a folder with another user (who has a DropBox account and client loaded)
Your contents are dropped to their computer - any changes made by them or you is synchronized to/from all computers that are shared (I'm not sure how it handles conflicts as of yet).

When you share a file, you do so via your Public folder. You drop a file into your public folder, right-click it > DropBox > 'Copy public link' then email your recipient the link and thats it! Your recipient can click the link on their side and download the file.

FYI: When you share a folder, your recipient will get a local copy of your shared folder - so, it goes without saying to try and not share a folder with more contents than what your recipient has in free drive space!

Download your folders as a ZIP file

A cool feature that the web site provides is the ability to download a shared folder as a ZIP file. So, if you don't have DropBox installed on a PC, you could download your folders as needed.

Refer to DropBox, get more space

The only downside to DropBox is that the free account is limited to 2Gb - but there is a cool offer for those who send referrals to DropBox. When you refer other users to sign up for the service and they create an account and download the client, you and your friend automatically get an additional 250Mb of free space!

Referral-related free space is limited to 3Gb total, so if you exclusively use a free account, you are limited to 5Gb. You can sign up for a 50Gb plan for $99 a year, which really isn't bad, so if you have a lot of data to synchronize, this might do the trick for you!

Idea: Pyramid scheme!

I would like to see a bit more space for the free users - hey, how about a pyramid scheme type of system for referrals? User 'A' refers 'B', User 'A' gets 250Mb of space, User 'B' refers User 'C' - User A gets 125Mb, B gets 250Mb? Or, if a referral purchases a year's worth of space, the referring member gets a significant increase in space?

I still use SkyDrive, but DropBox is kind of like an Internet attached USB drive where I can keep all my stuff that I really need synchronized (and backed up if my system crashes!).

Update: AVG 8.5 and Avira 9.0

2009-03-25T07:00:00.002-05:00

Free AV suppliers Grisoft and Avira have announced recently that they have updated their offerings to version 8.5 and 9.0, respectively.

AVG 8.5 offers updated safe-search algorithms and a new pre-execution code protection feature from malicious websites.

Avira 9.0 offers anti-spyware removal, enhanced heuristics detection engine, one-click threat detection/removal and netbook support for lower resolution screens.

Network Calculators [del.icio.us]

2009-03-02T05:40:38-08:00

Set of free subnet and network calculators. Great for those of us who can't do it in our head!

Default Passwords | CIRT.net [del.icio.us]

2009-02-22T09:34:57-08:00

Even more default admin passwords for various networking hardware

Ebooks search engine [del.icio.us]

2009-01-26T21:02:43-08:00

Search for all sorts of eBooks...