Archive for February, 2008
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Lupo PenSuite provides a single source and download for a massive 180+ portable freeware applications. Not only that but the Lupo PenSuite site gives you links to more than a further 1600 portable programs along with instructions and a tutorial on how to add them to your personal “PenSuite”.This is the other portable applications pack that I have on all (most of  ) my PC’s, USB Memory Sticks and Portable drives. (I also use the PortableApps suite - see Why You Want to Use Portable Freeware Applications and PortableApps Menu - Start All Your Portable Applications with 2 Clicks).
I will be reviewing many of the applications included in the suite over the coming weeks.
Summary:
- Single Source & Download for 180 Programs
- Complete with Menu system/Application Launcher
- Programs can be easily added to your personal suite
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 12% [?]
 3 Comments »
Somewhere between Live Writer on my PC and my server the post was corrupted so I have had to take it down. It will be back later today when I have rewritten it. Seems probably the fault was on my PC as the last saved local draft is corrupted as well.
Apologies to anyone who picked it up in the brief time it was posted or from FeedBurner.
Barry
Popularity: 9% [?]
1 Comment »
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
“You will be scammed on eBay. The only question is when” - This is the opening line on the Auction Inquisitor website. Perhaps a bit over the top, a theme of the developers as you will see below, but the fact is that there is a lot of fraud on eBay and you should do the best you can to protect yourself. Carrying out checks manually is something we all probably do, looking for obvious signs in the text, location, pricing and auction text. How much better to have a utility that does the donkey work for you.
Auction Inquisitor helps by carrying out a range of checks on an individual auction. It provides a summary of significant indicators of potential eBay fraud along with some sound advice on how to guard against making the wrong decision. I like the way it presents the advice along with sensible suggestions about how you should interpret and use the information. Health warning: The Auction Inquisitor website and the start screen for the program may offend your sense of good taste - it’s a bit in your face and “please click on the links to buy our other products or those we advertise”. The screenshot above of their logo probably says it all. However the usefulness of the program itself justifies putting up with this! This is a good example of a program that is freeware because it has a sales model based on selling/advertising and using the eBay system to indirectly generate income.
Summary:
- Checks individual auctions against a range of criteria which may indicate fraud
- Provides a summary against these criteria
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 14% [?]
4 Comments »
News
There are many possibilities for running Windows and Linux on the same PC, andLinux provides an exciting new alternative which seems to give the best of both worlds!
There must be many people like me who want to run Linux, see what it’s all about, is it a real viable alternative to Windows for me and how good are the applications. What has put me off is the degree of effort required to set it up and try it when I have to use Windows for my day job, I have 20 years of experience and knowledge so I am comfortable with Windows, I know its strengths and weaknesses, I know what I can do and not do, I know what applications work for me and what they do (and don’t). This is a massive investment of time and memory, the thought of trying to do it all again while exciting, I love the new and unexplored, the thrill of new knowledge, it is all rather overwhelming. There is also the risk of it all going horribly wrong somewhere (Windows manages this quite well on its own at times!). Even with a good backup strategy and recent backups, which you would be very foolish not to employ under any situation, let alone an installation and environment like this. There is a lot of time and effort in checking that everything is there when restoring backups so best avoided if possible.
Up until recently the alternatives to using Linux and Windows at the same time have been:
- Have two separate PC’s one for each system. This has the advantage of completely separating the OS’s and avoiding potential disasters with one system effecting the other or your data..
- You can install both on a single PC and have a dual boot system. This is a rather inelegant and time consuming solution as you have to shut down one system and then boot the other. Also the dangers of corruption of data or one OS by the other greatly increases .
- You can install Virtualization software such as VMWare or VirtualBox and then install Linux in inside. A better solution but the communication between the virtual system and the native PC hardware/system can create issues in being able to create the same experience as a system installed directly to the PC.
- You can use WINE to run Windows applications in a Linux environment. (But I approach this from the view of a Windows user wanting to run Linux)
Now there is a better solution
Quoting from the andLinux.org website:
Introduction
andLinux is a complete Ubuntu Linux system running seamlessly in Windows 2000 based systems (2000, XP, 2003, Vista; 32-bit versions only). This project was started for Dynamism for the GP2X community, but its userbase far exceeds its original design. andLinux is free and will remain so, but donations are greatly needed.
andLinux uses CoLinux as its core which is confusing for many people. CoLinux is a port of the Linux kernel to Windows. Although this technology is a bit like running Linux in a virtual machine, CoLinux differs itself by being more of a merger of Windows and the Linux kernel and not an emulated PC, making it more efficient. Xming is used as X server and PulseAudio as sound server.
andLinux is not just for development and runs almost all Linux applications without modification.
Visit the andLinux website for more information, including screenshots, FAQ, Downloads and an installation guide. There is also a Forum which appears top be quite active.
There are two versions of andLinux Beta 1 rc6 (02/12/2008) currently available:
- Minimal - XFCE version - 143 MB
- Full - KDE version - 665 MB
The following information is also from andLinux:
Requirements
- OS: Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista (currently only the 32-bit versions are supported)
- Memory: at least 128 MB (192 MB or more is recommended)
Note that you should have enough memory left for Windows (at least 128 MB for Windows 2000 / XP / 2003; at least 512 MB for Windows Vista)!
- Hard disk space: 2.5 GB (XFCE version) / 4.5 GB (KDE version)
Note that you need an NTFS file system (which is default since Windows 2000) because you can’t create files larger than 2 GB on FAT(32) file systems!
- A good internet connection (to be able to install further applications via apt-get / Synaptic)
- Some basic Linux skills to proceed once andLinux is installed
What you will get
You will get:
- a fully functional Linux system, however without the usual desktop (you’ve already got one from Windows)
- a second panel (e.g. at the top of your Windows desktop) or a second start menu (in the system tray next to the clock), from which you can start Linux applications
- Linux applications and Windows applications can be used simultaneously and you can cut and paste text between them
- apt / Synaptic to install further applications
You will NOT get:
- another desktop
- the bench of applications that usually ship with Linux distributions (you have to fetch whatever you want)
- a printer driver
- trouble with further drivers
Security warning: It is recommended to use andLinux only on single-user-PCs or in a trustworthy environment because the communication with the X-Server and the launcher is not secured, i.e., every user who can login to Windows can access andLinux.
andLinux has me excited about giving it a try so that I have an easy way to dip in and out of the Linux experience quickly and easily. I will be posting a review of how this goes in the near future.
Another useful resource is this post on Lifehacker Seamlessly Run Linux…… . This gives a brief background to Linux and then lots of information and screenshots on installing andLinux..
Technorati Tags: Freeware, Linux, News, Operating System, Windows, Windows XP, Virualization, VMWare, VirualBox
Popularity: 16% [?]
3 Comments »
Windows Live Data Free online data storage option has now officially been launched as as a “non-beta” offering with an impressive 5GB of free storage as reported by the
SkyDrive Team blog:
February 21
We know it’s been mighty quiet on the SkyDrive blog, but we’ve been hard at work on a new version that we’re proud to announce today!
You’ve made two things clear since our first release: You want more space; and you want SkyDrive where you are. Today we’re giving you both. You now have five times the space you had before — that’s 5GB of free online storage for your favorite documents, pictures, and other files.
SkyDrive is also available now in 38 countries/regions. In addition to Great Britain, India, and the U.S., we’re live in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey.
This is a part of Microsoft’s Windows Live initiative and appears to be a good way of storing and/or exchanging up to 5GB of your precious files online.
Personal experience using other free systems shows that the speed of transfer and limits on free storage capacity combine to make this only part of a strategy for backup or file exchange. The benefits are:
- Ability to access files from anywhere you can get an Internet connection
- Exchange files with others (friends, family, colleagues, etc.)
- Backup of important files away from the location of the originals (safeguard against fire or theft)
I shall be testing this out shortly and providing a review on what I find.
Popularity: 14% [?]
2 Comments »
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
TeraCopy is a freeware file copying and moving utility form Code Sector that integrates with Windows Explorer. Not only does it give you more control over copying and moving files but also provides some additional functions as well as significantly higher file transfer rates. (It also has features to integrate it with Total Commander and Directory Opus but these have not been tested as both these utilities are not Freeware). TeraCopy is Freeware for Home Users, there is also a paid version, TeraCopy Pro which has not been tested.
N.B The version tested is 2.0 beta 2, the final version may behave differently and address some of the issues raised in the review.
TeraCopy has had beta versions since Sept 2007 (1.25) and Nov 2007 (2.0).
TeraCopy 1.2 (not beta) was released 22 June 2007.
N.B. This is a review of a beta stage version and therefore some comments and conclusions may not apply to the final release version.
Summary:
- Copy and Move files selected in Windows Explorer
- File transfer rates are significantly faster than Windows Explorer
- Transfers between folders, drives and over a LAN
- Integrates into Windows Shell
- Runs at Startup
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 34% [?]
6 Comments »
Posted by: Barry Cleave in Portable Freeware, tags: Freeware Utilities, Impartial Review, Independent Review, My Free Review, Portable, Portable Application, Portable Freeware, ProReviewer, Utility Process Manager, Windows, Windows XP
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
TaskSwitchXP provides an alternative way to switch tasks using alt-tab. Described as “an advanced task management utility that picks up where the standard Windows Alt+Tab switcher leaves off” by the developers ntwind software. Quoting them more fully adequately describes the essentials of the program:
TaskSwitchXP is an advanced task management utility that picks up where the standard Windows Alt+Tab switcher leaves off. It provides the same functionality, and adds visual styles to the dialog and also enhances it by displaying thumbnail preview of the application that will be switched to.
TaskSwitchXP also has a powerful process and window management capability that allows you quickly to close/minimize applications and their groups. The unique capabilities of TaskSwitchXP make it useful for tracking down multitudinous windows, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.
Summary:
- Provides preview snapshots of all running windows (alt-tab)
- Designed for XP with XP visual styles
- Allows for windows management (minimise, cascade, etc)
- Can select groups of windows
- Multilingual
- Process/task management capabilities
- Can be set to run automatically at Startup
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 22% [?]
5 Comments »
Leo, the developer, sent me the following email answering some of the points I raised in the review. He has kindly given me permission to reproduce his comments (Thanks Leo!)
The bullet points in the email are my comments in the review and Leo’s replies are in blue.
(more…)
Popularity: 20% [?]
1 Comment »
Tonight I am working on moving the My Free Review blog to Pro Reviewer and so far (touch wood) it’s going far more easily than I expected. I spent a lot of yesterday reading up about transferring blog domains and there seemed to be quite a lot involved, particularly in changing the MySQL database. Much to my amazement everything seems to be happening fairly automatically. Maybe this is a result of the fact that I have “parked” the new domain in the same home directory with my web host. This leaves myfreereview.com as the principal domain and proreviewer.com pointing to it.
(more…)
Popularity: 11% [?]
4 Comments »
What Does it Do - The Essentials?
There are several websites offering an online web service, one that I have used recently to create the “Favicon” for this website is at RealWorld Graphics. This is a quick way of creating a basic icon (*.ico) file. You can select colours and draw your own icon of you can upload a picture for it to interpret into an icon. I am not saying that this is the best available website for icon creation, but I have tried a couple of others and I found this one easy to use and smooth in its operation. (Any suggestions for better web based applications will be gratefully received in the comments!) (more…)
Popularity: 14% [?]
No Comments »
|
