Get the MacUpdate Promo Bundle!
The Mac has an amazing shareware ecosystem. Currently a bundle is being offered in MuPromo.
The Bundle just costs a standard $49.99 for potentially 10 applications.
The bundled applications are great, and I consider it a real bargain. There are numerous applications, which I already loved using (but trials till now 
).
DevonAgent is great application for complex searches, it really allows you to make sense of a complex subject and have all the results categorized for you in easily understood common keywords.
Bookends is an amazing tool for generating bibliographies - a godsend if you write a lot of research papers. If you're just writing the occasional college paper it's probably not worth the normally high price, but it's useful enough for any paper that would need a bibliography, so if you're tempted by something else in the bundle it's absolutely worth it to be able to get Bookends too. MacJournal is a great journaling program, but it's true there are other solutions out there that are free or less expensive. Personally, I like MacJournal enough that I bought a license, but it would really come down to whatever program of that sort you'd be most comfortable with - try several, but again, be happy if you're getting it with the bundle because you wanted some of the other programs anyway (since it's a safe bet it will be unlocked before the promotion ends).
I haven't heard much about the other applications, but reviews seem to be universally positive.
Mozilla Ubiquity Rocks!
Mozilla Ubiquity is a very impressive new project form Mozilla. It will be an extension to firefox, which allows you to easily create mashups using common natural language. Once released its impact I presume could be massive in extending Firefox's lead in the Browser war.
For now I'm sure its something only geeks would use, until Microsoft copies it into IE9.
Just watch a demo here:
JungleDisk: Backup your data on the Amazon S3 Cloud
I've been thinking for quite some time about creating an online storage system, similar to time machine but instead of backing up against an external HD, it backs up against a cloud service such as aws.amazon.com/s3 S3, in order to provide worldwide availability to my data.
Its a pretty neat idea, and today I realized that it had already been done, and done with class its called JungleDisk. JungleDisk for a low fee of $20 allows you to download a client, it supports Mac, Windows and Linux and allows you to backup using the S3 Cloud.
The OSX client, allows you to seamlessly backup at regular intervals, or/and use your S3 account as a network attached storage device. S3 is cheap: 1GB/month costs only 0.15$. So if I where to backup my home directory, currently 100 something GB, I calculated it would only cost me round £100 to keep it on amazon/annually.
I'm keeping my 1TB external storage for time machine for now, I think JungleDisk would be very useful if I were to move/travel abroad then I could keep my backup on S3, and in any contingencies restore when I'm in need.
Another good online Backup software is Carbonite.
Why I think strong password generators are a bad idea
Recently in twit.tv's MacBreak Weekly, they advised about a simple technique to get secure passwords, by using openssl, then in another episode they talked about 1Password.
The advise was to generate a strong password and have your keychain manager remember it! Now, if you do follow that advise, and set up complex passwords, and have your keychain manager remember it, what happens if your keychain becomes corrupted due to any reason (or your hard disk crashes and you don't have a backup), you would be completely locked out of your accounts, because the password was too complex to remember. Or imagine your traveling and get your laptop stolen (happened to a friend recently), there is no way you can login into any service, because you don't remember the passwords any more. So are strong random passwords really a good idea??
I rather think, that phrases, you remember are better as passwords. Or if possible try to use openssl keys for identification. The best methods I've seen so far, and I think its pretty secure from keyloggers as well, is method used by my bank.
The site does not prompt for the entire password, rather, you have to type in certain characters in the password, for instance:
And every time you login the character a different set of characters is asked. This method is secure from keyloggers for sure, because no one will have an idea what character was asked.
Zinio makes Magazines accessible!
Don't you love to read magazines in your field? I love to read MacWorld, PC Magazine, PC World it helps me keep up to date and provides a good way to pass my leisure time. However before today I did not want to subscribe to magazines independently and have them pile up in my room.
Today I ordered a Digital subscription of MacWorld, in order to be environmentally friendly, preemptively remove a lot of mess in my room and make the content searchable. The MacWorld site took me to Zinio, where I discovered what a treasure trove it is.
Zinio makes a lot of magazines accessible to the casual reader. It offers a wide range of popular magazines from MacWorld to Playboy to Jane's Defense Weekly. Subscription are cheap. For a whole year subscription like costs $20 for a single magazine.
The only downside of ZInio is the DRM'd format in which the digital magazines are delivered. The content is not indexable by spotlight. I have to use their own search utility to search through the magazines. They have a client for Mac, which downloads new magazines available to you.
Create desktop client easily for web applications
I love to use tada lists, however I hate to open a browser and go to the URL and login. I would love to have a desktop client for tada lists. Similarly there are various web applications which I love to use, however I dont want to browse to the site. If you face these problems, enter Fluid.
Fluid allows you to create a 'desktop type' application of any web applications, for example, I used it to create desktop client applications for tada lists, my mail, facebook and some other sites.
Fluid can also support various client application modes. For example
This is a standard client application of tada lists.
And this is another mode, this is a Digg Application, where you can access it form the system menu bar.
How to remove data from Time Machine backups
I've done this short video, to demonstrate how one can remove data from Time machine backup. Because there are certain folders which have been backed up since ages, and they change often (like a virtual machine), and hence one can end up with a lot of space wasted in the backup drive.
Everything now is a cloud service??
I'm all for Cloud computing, and I love services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and S3. But I hate when people abuse the term.
I just came across this article, which starts with:
"Google’s Gmail outage on Monday was the latest stumble for nascent cloud computing services, which are becoming the lifeblood for small businesses and startups."
Gmail and a cloud service and 'nascent' too? Gmail is theoretically similar to Yahoo Mail which is like 'ancient' in internet time, but would you name that a 'cloud service'?
Everytime someone abuses this term on the internet, he definitely has no idea what he is talking about.
Feed
Archives
- August 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- July 2009
- May 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- October 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
Categories
- adobe
- apple
- backup
- cluster computing
- clusters
- commercial apps
- Distributed Computing
- economics
- firefox
- FOSS
- grid computing
- industry news
- internet
- iPhone app
- ipod
- kde
- kernel development
- linux
- mac
- macosx
- microsoft
- misc
- mozilla
- n95
- networking
- networks
- open source
- opensuse
- operating systems
- pakistan
- perl
- personal
- podcast
- programming
- python
- safari
- security
- software
- startups
- supercomputing
- ubuntu
- Uncategorized
- virtualization
- web
- Web2
- web2.0
- webservices
- wimax
- windows
- wine