Tech for Lunch! » Software

RIM – Blackberry App World

Pascal Roy — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:27:49 +0000

Research in Motion (RIM) is now joining the parade with an online app-store. Just like the very famous Apple iTunes App-Store, and the recently released Microsoft Store, Blackberry users will be able to purchase and download a plethora of applications for their devices. This was already possible, just not directly from RIM, and this will offer the possibility to centralize all applications in a single place.

The Blackberry App World is an application that you install on your blackberry device. Once installed, it acts just like on the iPhone, letting you browse the many categories and download applications and games directly on your device. Put more of your life on your BlackBerry smartphone! Download BlackBerry App World for free to load up your BlackBerry smartphone with games, social networking, online shopping, personal productivity, organization tools and other fun and functional apps. It’s your world – bring more of it with you with BlackBerry App World!

App World will be a great place for developers to publish their work and make an extra buck selling their applications. It should help RIM stay on top of the threat the iPhone has become and keep its users satisfied with an acceptable number of applications available in many categories.

You can get started directly on the Blackberry site.

Windows Server 2008 Foundation

Pascal Roy — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:22:10 +0000

Microsoft has added a new edition to its Windows Server 2008 family: Windows Server 2008 Foundation. The basic idea is a stripped down version which allows small businesses to harness the power of Server 2008 without killing their budget. Foundation is built on the same code as the rest of the family so it is 64-bit only.

Windows Foundation Server provides you with a dependable and affordable technology foundation for running your business applications as well as sharing information and resources. Being based on Windows Server 2008, you can run not only core infrastructure, terminal services and identity management solutions for your business – you can support you core LOB applications built on the simplicity and technical capabilities that Windows Server 2008 provides.

Windows Server 2008 is a great way to get your first Server 2008 in your business, especially if you have no servers in your infrastructure yet. It will allow you to grow and use the best technologies right away. It is limited to 15 users, so the recommended applications are the following:

Core Infrastructure: Windows Server Foundation is an excellent option for use with single or multiple workloads, such as file sharing, print sharing, networking, Terminal Services, remote connections, and other common server roles. Also, Windows Server Foundation can be used for Internet Web services and as a Web server platform for intranets and extranets where user authentication is required.
Active Directory: Windows Server Foundation can be used as an Active Directory server or domain controller, and can also join a domain as a member server or domain controller (but the 15 user limit still applies across AD scenarios)
Terminal Services (Remote Desktop): Windows Server Foundation is also ideal for multiple-user computing, such as sharing Microsoft Office or using Terminal Services.
Line of Business Applications (LOB): Your line of business applications that are built for the Windows Server 2008 family can be deployed on your server. If they have the “Certified for”, or “Works with” accreditation for Windows Server 2008 Standard, then they will be supported on Windows Server Foundation, as well as being able to deploy many third party software which is currently available for Windows Server 2008.

Server Foundation is probably a great server solution for the above-mentionned applications, but the 15-users limit might be reached pretty quickly if you plan on expanding. Microsoft’s Small Business Server 2008 might be a better solution if you want to get all the bells and whistles without the huge price tag.

Teracopy – Copy files faster in Windows

Pascal Roy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:21:01 +0000

Just a few days ago, I had to make backups of a few computers. I used Acronis True Image to make full images of the machines and needed to take them out of the company to keep them safe. I thought I would simply copy them to an external USB 2.0 hard drive, but when I hit the copy/paste operation to copy the first 16gb file, I realized I wouldn’t be getting home any time soon.

I remembered a friend talking to me about a tiny freeware that lets you resume copies in case there were problems so I figured it would be a good idea to give that a shot. Enter Teracopy. This Windows “Copy replacement” lets you copy files much much faster than Windows ever could and adds many new features to the standard function. Here is some information from their site:

Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
Full Unicode support.

Teracopy impressed me quite a bit. it uses different techniques to make sure your copies are completed faster, and that’s not just a catch phrase. I’ve never heard my USB hard drive work that hard. The estimated time for the Windows copy was about 55 minutes for each file. Teracopy got everything done in about 30 minutes.

Once installed, Teracopy completely replaces your windows functions so whenever you make a copy/paste operation, Teracopy takes over. At the time of writing this article, there is a portable version in beta. There is also a Pro version that lets your play around in the copy queue and gives you support & upgrades as well.

10 Free Network Management Tools from SolarWinds

Pascal Roy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:18:37 +0000

Management tools are always useful, but good ones are hard to find. I think the best ones are very often the ones that are built for a single purpose instead of those huge applications that are supposed to do everything. One good example of this, is Solarwind’s Exchange Server Monitor. I came across this application because I needed something that would just sit there and let me see how the server was doing without having to check a remote desktop window constantly. I went back to see the other free tools and many of them can be extremely useful for the specific tasks they were built for.

SolarWinds Free TFTP Server – upload and download executable images and configurations to network devices – our most popular free network monitoring tool!
IP SLA Monitor – quickly troubleshoot network slowdowns between sites and easily understand device-to-device performance using sophisticated Cisco® IP SLA operations.
Free Kiwi Syslog Server – receive, log, display, and forward syslog messages from network devices with this easy-to-use Syslog Server.
Free Kiwi CatTools – simplify daily management tasks with the ability to manage and backup network
VM Monitor – continuously monitor a VMware® ESX Server and its virtual machines with at-a-glance virtualization health statistics.
SolarWinds Free Real-time NetFlow Analyzer – capture and analyze up to one hour of NetFlow data to see what types of traffic are on your network, where it’s coming from, & where it’s going.
SolarWinds Free Exchange Monitor – continuously monitor Exchange and get real-time insight into services, mail queue sizes, and host server health with this clever desktop dashboard.
SolarWinds Free NetFlow Configurator – configure NetFlow v5 via SNMP on supported Cisco® devices – a perfect complement to Orion NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and our free Real-time NetFlow Analyzer tool!
SolarWinds Free Advanced Subnet Calculator – compute addresses for IP subnets – another perennial favorite in our suite of free network monitoring tools!
SolarWinds Free Wake-On-LAN
– remotely power up network PCs

I have not tested all of these tools of course, because some of them are too specific for my needs, but the Exchange Monitor and the Kiwi Syslog Server work great and do exactly what you expect them to.

Free tools are always welcome and the quality products offered by Solarwinds are an excellent addition to any administrator’s toolset.

Microsoft Launches Internet Explorer 8

Pascal Roy — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:41:31 +0000

Microsoft has officially released Internet Explorer 8 to the public, after a few beta releases and many many articles on the web… I have covered this in the past a couple of times as well, listing all the new features and taking a test-drive of the first beta release. This official release has no new features compared to the betas that have been available, but does correct a few bugs and glitches. The main aspects that have been improved for IE8 over previous versions are the speed, security and, best of all, compliance. Microsoft states ease of use

as an enhancement, but that’s really just a matter of how you use your browser. Whether it will help you get things done faster, is up to you.

Microsoft’s site offers a nice tour of features and lets you download the lastest version. I have yet to give the final version a try.. I must confess, I still use IE6 sometimes. I have never upgraded to the dreaded IE7 because every time I have come across it, I noticed weird page renderings and an incredibly slow performance. However, if I must upgrade to something better eventually (assuming I can’t use my beloved Firefox…), then I would choose Internet Explorer 8 over previous versions easily.

I have read in quite a few places about people who will wait for a while before upgrading because they want to make sure the bugs are fixed. Well, I have to agree, but this shouldn’t be something to stop you from trying it on a test machine or in a virtual environment. There are still fixes coming out for IE6 after all ;-)

All things considered, if you are going to upgrade to it eventually and don’t need previous versions for compatibility issues with a specific application or website, then upgrading shouldn’t be a problem.

PhoneEX – makes your WM5-6 phone act like an iPhone

Pascal Roy — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:51:59 +0000

My mobile phone is an HTC P4000 on the Telus Network. It runs Windows Mobile 6 and does a pretty good job on most everything I need it for. However, as in many Microsoft products, there are quite a few areas that can be improved and rendered more enjoyable to use. Not too long ago, I came across a very cool extension for my phone called PhonEx. This excellent extension by Iconsoft completely changes the way your contacts and phone functionalities work and makes it all a lot more interesting.

PhonEx is one of those plugins that once you get used to having it around, you just can’t live without it. I’ve tried many plugins and applications that modify my contacts and/or my phone, but I always ended up removing them because they either caused problems or simply didn’t have the features I was used to with the standard WM6 functions. PhonEx is not subtle in its changes and that’s what makes it work for me. I love the scrolling contacts and the large dial-pad the most. The Today plugin is also a very nice feature and let’s you change settings and access your contacts and favorites in no time.

: PhonEx Contacts

The contacts manager is probably the most interesting feature there is because it is the one that sold me to this extension. You can scroll through your contacts using just your thumb, just like on the iPhone. no need for the stylus or the scroll bar. Not only is this convenient, but it make your phone look and feel less antiquated. Everything moves around smoothly, even on my older processor. When you select a contact, the screen slides to the left and brings up the details of that contact, with a larger image and options to contact that person in a variety of ways: Call, Email, SMS etc… whatever you have entered is available. This is where you can modify your contact’s information, assign a new picture etc… I didn’t have pictures for everyone before, but since I installed PhonEx, I’ve been taking more pictures and trying to get more of my contacts updated because it simply looks good and makes that contacts list more attractive.

PhonEx Phonepad

From there, you can access your favorites, which is a list of people you choose to be easier to reach instead of having to go through your entire contacts list. You can see a list of all your calls including incoming/outgoing and missed calls. Finally, you can also go directly to the phone pad for manual dialing. You could use the “send” key which gets reassigned to PhonEx and takes you to the phonepad as well. The large buttons on the phonepad allow you to use your thumb only and, in my case, responds much much faster than the standard WM6 one. For instance, when accessing my voicemail, there was a huge lag when entering my passcode. With PhonEx, I can tap the numbers as fast as I want and everything works just fine.

: Incoming Call

There are a number of other great features like the full screen incoming calls. When you receive a call, you get that on the entire screen, showing a picture of the contact (if you put one in) along with the number and location if it’s available.

Once you’re in a call, you have access to all the usual features, but with large buttons and it even lets you see if you are on Bluetooth right away. You can conference someone else in and put them on Hold, Speakerphone or Mute. You have access to the phone pad as well which is useful for dialing extensions or passcodes as I mentioned earlier.

PhonEx is certainly an excellent extension to have on your Windows Mobile Smartphone. You can give it a try for free for 15 days and see for yourself.

How to download albums from Facebook

Pascal Roy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:12:58 +0000

Have you ever wanted to grab an entire photo album from one of your friends on Facebook? It can be pretty annoying to download every single picture from an album, one by one. About a year ago, I had a plugin for firefox that could download an entire photo album in a single click. But after firefox changed to version 3.0 and facebook redesigned their pages, that plugin no longer worked.

Last week, I heard about FacePAD (Facebook Photo Album Downloader), a nifty little plugin that does exactly that; it lets you go inside an album, right-click on it and download every single image to a folder of your choice.

All you have to do is make sure you are using firefox, and install the plugin. Once installed and running, log on to Facebook and find a photo album from one of your friends that you would like to be able to browse offline. Simply right-click on the link to the album that you want to download and select “Download Album with FacePAD”. If you already clicked on that link and you are already in the album, you can simply right-click on one of the page numbers at the top of the album and you will get the same result.

Some people have complained that the plugin only downloads the first page of the album or gives javascript errors. I have not had these problems and all pages of the albums I tested downloaded just fine. The only slightly annoying thing with this plugin is that you have to confirm the download for each picture as if you were clicking them individually. It’s not too bad considering the amount of time you save from having to do all the work yourself.

Happy Downloading!

Vista User Account Control (UAC) Tool

Pascal Roy — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:27:05 +0000

The very first time I tried Windows Vista, I was annoyed by the UAC right away. User Account Control (UAC) is a that feature of Windows Vista that makes it so you are never actually logged-in as an administrator. Instead, whenever you need to accomplish a task that requires admin rights, you need to confirm that you actually want to do it. It’s not a bad idea per say, but it would have been a lot better if we had a little bit more control over it. For example, being able to choose what tasks will require the UAC prompt and the possibility to “remember” the prompts to which you have already answered.

Norton Labs offer a simple tool that replaces the standard Windows UAC and allows you to respond to each prompt only once. The Norton UAC tool allows an application to run with silently-elevated privileges only in a specific context, one previously approved by the user with the “don’t ask again” check box selected. This means that there is a difference between regedit.exe launched from the start->run box, regedit.exe originating from a shortcut double-click, and regedit.exe launched from a double click on a .reg file (and the context actually changes with each .reg file), and regedit.exe launched by an application (malicious or not). Given the contextual awareness of Norton UAC tool’s automatic responses, the Norton UAC tool provides a usability improvement over Vista’s default UAC prompts, while maintaining obvious security improvements in the Vista kernel (such as isolation, file/registry virtualization, and user interface privilege isolation) that are all disabled when UAC is disabled. Here is what the new prompts will look like:

The tool is available in 32-bits and 64-bits formats and is a free download. Simply install it and give it a shot. I think the only portion that is missing is the ability to tweak on which tasks the UAC is in function, but at least, its better than turning it off all together. Be aware that since this is a beta “Lab tool”, the program may send Meta Data back to Norton for analysis. Nothing private, but just what prompts are popping up and what you choose to do with them

Adobe Flex will become Flash Platforms

Pascal Roy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:24:39 +0000

I’ve been following the development and the evolution of Adobe Flex ever since it first appeared as a beta, but its marketing has always been uncertain. The way it was referenced and named was sometimes inconsistent and the name itself made it a little difficult to search for in some cases.

Adobe Flex will retain it’s name as a particular application but, from now on, the marketing for it will be as part of the Adobe Flash Platform. Adobe has announced this new name for the product line as well as a few other things that will be official at the MAX Conference this week.

Adobe Air version 1.5 will be available featuring much better performance and memory handling. The new version will support Flash 10 and webkit. There will also be a new encrypted database which is a huge plus for corporate applications. To go along with Air, Flex 4 (a.k.a. Gumbo)will be demonstrated which should be an even better and more powerful product than before, but also more accessible to newcomers.

Adobe Catalyst (a.k.a. Thermo) has been in the works for a long time now and aims to close the gap between Designers and Developers. It creates a two-way bridge between files created in Adobe’s Creative Suite products such as Photoshop , Illustrator, and Web apps built in Flash or AIR. Mobile flash will also be something in demonstration, allowing developers to port their applications on to mobile phones.

We should also see the new — and really really long awaited — 64-bit flash player for Linux. This just shows the wide adoption for flash and its already very impressive lead in the RIA world.

I personally can’t wait to see the new version of Flex Builder, version 4, and all it’s new features. I’m not a full-time developper so anything that makes building easier will be very welcomed and will certainly help Adobe to secure it’s lead as the RIA developper’s choice.

Genius Professional Driver – No more driver headaches.

Josee Riberdy — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:34:08 +0000

Genius Professional Driver is a small software that prevents you from wasting time trying to understand why your computer is slow or suddenly freezing when you install a new device…

What does it do? It backs up and updates the drivers of your computer and suggests new ones…

It will automatically download the latest drivers for the PC like… video card, sound card, network card, modem, digital camera, mouse, keyboard, etc.. It also removes the unused drivers.

Another nice thing for people who re-install their PC regularly… It allows you to save your drivers to an .EXE file. Very useful when re-installing a machine… it accelerates the process!

In short, it takes control of the management of your drivers so that you no longer need to deal with it.

If you are interested, you download it online by clicking on the following link.. Right here!

There is a free trial, test it!