Archives For Windows

News, updates, tips and commentary on Microsoft Windows.

7-Zip 4.64 Released

Paul Spoerry —  January 3, 2009 — Leave a comment

7-Zip

The main features of 7-Zip

  • High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
  • Supported formats:
    • Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
    • Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
  • For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
  • Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
  • Self-extracting capability for 7z format
  • Integration with Windows Shell
  • Powerful File Manager
  • Powerful command line version
  • Plugin for FAR Manager
  • Localizations for 74 languages

Compression ratio results are very dependent upon the data used for the tests. Usually, 7-Zip compresses to 7z format 30-70% better than to zip format. And 7-Zip compresses to zip format 2-10% better than most of other zip compatible programs.

Changelog

Download

In Tech, Windows
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15+ Must-Have Thumb Drive Apps for Geeks

Paul Spoerry —  January 2, 2009 — 2 Comments

A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind!

I personally have a large memory card on my Windows Mobile phone… so I can use something that I always have with me anyway as a way to carry around software. Pretty handy…

So let’s start with the mac daddy, the PortableApps Suite:

PortableApps.com Suite™ is a complete collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, audio player, sudoku game, password manager, PDF reader, minesweeper clone, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you’re ready to go.

All versions of the PortableApps.com Suite include the integrated PortableApps.com Menu (pictured at right) and the PortableApps.com Backup utility along with a set of custom icons, an autoplay configuration, folders and a quick start shortcut. In addition, the packages include:

*Note: The Light Suite includes AbiWord Portable (word processor) instead of OpenOffice.org Portable.

Portable apps doesn’t have it all… so let’s look at some of the rest:

Most other portable software can be found at PortableFreeware. While most people can get away with the PortableApps Suite there are a few things missing that I consider crucial to  your portable arsenal.

  • Truecrypt - TrueCrypt creates virtual encrypted disks within a file and mount them as a real disk. It supports a full range of encryption algorithms, including AES-256, which is used within the government for information as high up as Top Secret classification.
  • NotePad++ – Notepad++ is one of the few source code text editors that supports folding. In addition, it features multi-language syntax highlighting, auto-completion, regular expression search/replace, macro recording and playback etc. This is my preferred FREE text editor, it’s fast, light, and easy to use. And let’s face it… how often do you  really need a full blown Word Processor when on the run. If you’ll need one, plan ahead and take your laptop!
  • CCleaner – CCleaner is a system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system and cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally, and most importantly to me, it contains a fully featured registry cleaner.
  • uTorrent – µTorrent is a small BitTorrent client that uses very little system resources. This is my favorite BitTorrent client for the desktop, and while I wouldn’t suggest you run it full time from a portable USB device it could be handy in a pinch if you needed to grab something that requires a torrent download.
  • Foxit Reader Portable – Ok look, PDF’s suck. I hate them… seriously. More than that I hate Acrobat Reader since it’s a huge bloated application that takes forever to launch even on a fully modern PC. Having said that, there’s a LOT of PDF’s out there. Enter Foxt Reader which is a small and fast PDF viewer that is compatible with PDF Standard 1.6. Don’t think you’re limited to only the portable version, there is also a desktop version… ditch Acrobat for good!
  • 7-Zip – Oddly absent from the portableApps Suite is a compression utility. 7-Zip is a file archiver that supports just about every compression format you can think of.
  • FileZilla – A really good portable FTP client.

Just a note that most all of these portable apps can be integrated right into the PortableApps suite menu. The PortableApps.com Menu can automatically add apps in PortableApps.com Format. Just download the file you’d like to add (like FileZilla Portable, for instance). Then, in PortableApps.com Menu, click Options – Add a New App – Install and then select the FileZilla Portable .paf.exe file you just downloaded. The PortableApps.com Menu will automatically install it to the proper location for you.

In FireFox, Gadgets, Privacy, Tech, Windows , , ,
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KeePass Password Safe Review

Paul Spoerry —  December 28, 2008 — 3 Comments

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

Keepass comes in a portable version, perfect for keeping on a USB thumbdrive. The password database consists of only one file that can be transferred from one computer to another easily.

Keepass is open source and totally free (released under the GPL).  Version 2.x (the latest) runs on Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Mono (Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, …), the only requirement being that you have Microsoft .NET Framework ? 2.0 or Mono ? 2.0.1. It allows for exporting to XML, HTML, CSV, KDB3, XSL-Transformed, and importing from more than 25 different formats. KeePass 2.x already has built-in support for file synchronization and because it has a plugin architecture which allows others to extend the application you can also download a plugin to synchronize with online storage providers!

KeePass supports the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, Rijndael) and the Twofish algorithms to encrypt its password databases, this is the same type of encryption used by banks and the government, so you know your data is safe.

Grab a copy of Keepass from keepass.info.

In Privacy, Tech, Web Life, Windows , ,
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FireFox gains two out three users Microsoft that loses

Paul Spoerry —  December 24, 2008 — 1 Comment

Long ago the king of the browsers was Netscape. Microsoft turned their massive shift very quickly once they realized exactly how important the browser would be to the future of computing and brought Internet Explorer in line with Netscape… and then the browser wars began. As a web developer I can tell you those years SUUUCKED. Each company would include “features” that only worked with their browser, build web apps when the web was young was difficult (I realize this still exists, but nothing like it did back in the day).

Last month, Microsoft’s market share in the browser dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years, while Mozilla broke the 20% barrier for the first time in its history. Initial data sets provided by Net Applications suggest that the Internet Explorer will drop once again significantly in December to below 69% and Mozilla will climb above 21%.

This doesn’t mean IE is out… 69% is still the lions share but it shows that other browsers are making in-roads to Microsoft’s stranglehold on browser marketshare.  The contenders are FireFox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. FireFox is clearly in the lead as the primary competitor to IE. I personally use FireFox as my daily browser; when the next release comes out and their uber JavaScript engine is in place I can’t see myself going back to IE for anything unless it requires it. Chrome has the mighty Google backing it… it seems Google can do very little wrong lately and Chrome fits nicely into their long term strategy. However, Chrome is still immature in comparison to FireFox at this point.

For crazy detailed stats on each browser gain, decline, etc check out How serious is the market share loss of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer? at TGDaily.com.

I agree with the summary of the authors of the article… I’m stunned at how Microsoft is just letting this happen. Web apps may not be able to counter desktop apps yet (ok GMail is CLOSE… if they’d just get the contacts to sync correctly!); let’s face it… Photoshop via the web ain’t happening anytime soon. However, more and more applications are moving to the cloud. Google understands this and is pushing it agressively, MICROSOFT knows this and is building out cloud architecture… so I’m completely baffled as to why they would allow this to happen. IE8 beta’s appear to be a dude… slow, proprietary, and still not comforming to standards. Whereas the new-comers are quick, have excellent plugin architectures, the new rendering engines used in Chrome and the next release of FireFox make “web 2.0″ site rawk. I guess the best we can hope for at this point is that Microsoft has a card up it’s sleeve for when Windows 7 comes out.

In Chrome, FireFox, GMail, Google, iGoogle, Tech, Web Life, Windows, Windows 7 , , , , , ,
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Severe Security Flaws Patched in Firefox, IE, and Opera

Paul Spoerry —  December 18, 2008 — Leave a comment

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been getting all the attention lately because of a severe zero-day security hole(fixed), but Microsoft wasn’t the only one scrambling to fix its browser. Mozilla and Opera have issued quick patches to fix several security flaws in their browsers.

The Mozilla patches fix several severe security holes in Firefox 2.x and 3.x. These holes allowed crackers to run malicious code and install software on your machine without any user intervention, according to Mozilla.

Opera also announced an update to its browser that fixes 7 severe security holes affecting all platforms. “The update fixes seven security bugs, some of which were previously known. Version 9.63 of the browser addresses separate code injection risks stemming from flaws in HTML parsing and text inputing, respectively. A critical bug with similar arbitrary code injection risks involving the handling of long host names in files has also been patched. The latest version of the software also lances a cross-site scripting flaw, involving XSLT templates, as well as bugs in feed preview.”

Most of the attention went to Microsoft however, who released a patch (now available via Windows Update) for a zero-day vulnerability in pretty much every version of Internet Explorer. “The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.” The update is being pushed via Windows Update.

So… no matter what you’re using, look for an update!

In FireFox, Hacking, Privacy, Tech, Web Life, Windows , ,
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