Author: Daniel Westerstal

Freemind – Free mind mapping software

Published by Daniel Westerstal on July 9, 2008

There are advantages of doing mind-maps on the computer instead of using whiteboards or pencil and paper. It’s easier to keep structured, you never run out of room and it’s possible to link images and other objects.

While there are loads of proprietary software out there just for mind-mapping (MindManager, SmartDraw to name a few) there are few open-source or free alternatives. FreeMind is perhaps the most well known alternative.

The software is written in JAVA, which means excellent portability across platforms. FreeMind runs in any Java environment but most notable Windows, Linux and MAC OS. FreeMind is released under the GNU Public License (GPL).

My first experience with FreeMind was very confusing, the program interface actually resembles a 90s version of Micrografx Graph (those were the days). After a couple of minutes the interface feels less awkward and three days later it almost feels like a part of you.

Click the yellow light-bulb to add sub-topics to your main subject, FreeMind dubs it ”Child Note”.To change the text of something just click it and write. Out to the left there are a bunch of icons that can be used in connection with each note. For example if you want to set priorities use the stylish 1-5 icons. However I don’t get why there is a Linux penguin but not a plus-sign in there.

In FreeMind you can also create links to other objects (websites, files you name it) and insert pictures. A more powerful feature is the planning tools that aren’t directly visible, such as the calendar where you can set reminders. FreeMind can generate a schedule of all the events and reminders, which actually makes it possible to create plans directly from a mind-map.

FreeMind has a pretty active community behind it supporting the software and adding plug-ins. For example it’s possible to download a plug-in that connects FreeMind to MS Project, any project manager’s dream. There are also plug-ins that interacts with content management systems, such as Drupal or MediaWiki.

The program also has excellent export features; you can export as PDF (not even Microsoft Visio 2007 has that functionality built-in), PNG, SVG among other formats. It’s even possible to create HTML mind-maps, which makes FreeMind a great tool for web or Intranet use.

At first glance FreeMind doesn’t look like much, but it really has great functionality and features in there. The graphics are a bit dated, but it doesn’t matter because FreeMind is good at what it was originally designed to do.

Audacity

Published by Daniel Westerstal on May 10, 2008

Getting a good audio editing package these days can be daunting. There is a jungle of shareware and freeware applications out there, all with different characteristics. Audacity is an open source alternative, which has really caught on. The software can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux machines and offers basic audio editing as well as recording.

Audacity has some nifty features, it’s a breeze to remove noise, change the pitch and apply a number of effects (such as echo, bass boost and reverse). The software handles WAV, MP2, MIDI, MP2, AIFF, AU and Ogg Vorbis files. It’s possible to convert WAV-files to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis. There is one draw-back with Audacity and that’s the lack of support for WMV-files, mainly because it’s a proprietary file-format.

Importing and exporting large audio-files seems to be faster than in other similar audio-editors. Editing files in Audacity is a very easy, it is possible to have several files open at once and mixing them together. Most of the editing is done using the mouse and cut and paste, it is also possible to zoom and undo an unlimited amount of times. The interface in the progam is familiar, if you worked with other audio or video programs you will feel right at home.

Audacity is a great piece of software if you are recording podcasts, radio shows or need to do basic audio editing or analysis. If you are after playing around with sound for sake of it there are probably more suitable applications out there.

CD Burner XP

Published by Daniel Westerstal on April 12, 2008

Finding a good free application to burn CDs is not easy these days. There are a bunch of different choices and many of them are quite shaky or no good at all. One program that never fails is CD-Burner XP though.

The program has a number of features found in commercial packages such as the ability to burn and create ISO-images, burn bootable discs, creating audio CDs with or without gaps between the songs and much more.

CD-Burner XP has a pretty neat interface it resembles Nero some, it isn’t a direct copy though and still does its own thing. The program asks you when it starts if you want to create a data-CD or an audio CD, after that it’s a matter of selecting which files and folders to burn. Burning DVDs can also be done using CD-Burner XP, and is done the same-way as ordinary CDs.

There is however a hitch with CD-Burner XP, and that is that your cd-drive has to be compatible with the software, most common drives are though. CD-Burner XP is not open source, but still free. According the developers there are licensed code in the third party libraries the software is using. Nevertheless CD-Burner XP is a great piece of software that works with Windows XP and Vista.

WOS Portable II

Published by Daniel Westerstal on March 8, 2008

WOS stands for Web server on Stick, which is pretty much what it is. To some people this product might seem a bit unnecessary but if you are a web-developer using PHP and Apache WOS is a godsend.

WOS emulates an Apache and MySQL server on any USB-stick. The installation process is easy; CH Software has developed an online wizard called the WOS Mixer that helps you through it. When using the mixer you will be asked if you want to update your existing WOS-package or make a new one. After that a list comes up with a bunch of GPL-software, there is a lot of server stuff such as Apache 2, MySQL 5 and PHP 4 or 5. The list also contains a number of CMS-systems such as MediaWiki, Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, TYPO 3 and WordPress.

The wizard then creates a downloadable .zip file, after the download extract the zip-file and follow the on-screen instructions. If everything goes well your USB-stick will then work as a web-server with several CMS-systems installed.

It is also easy to import database copies from other sites into WOS (using PHPMyAdmin), when importing a whole site structure remember to change config settings so that the paths reflect the ones on the USB-stick.

When WOS is installed it is simply a matter of running the executable on the USB-stick. The software has a number of options, but nothing too spacey. It is possible to set the URL that is typed in the browser to reach the WOS-server. There are also some options that clear all Apache and MySQL logs when WOS is ended. WOS Portable II can also receive updates and it even has a backup feature if you want to backup the databases.

Carrying WOS Portable II around is a breeze, I have tried it for several months and it always impresses clients when it is possible to show the actual sites almost ready with server-side scripting and all. This is also a good product if you run servers or large-scale websites where you want one platform to test things on before releasing them publicly. WOS works perfectly in Firefox and Internet Explorer, it might work in other browsers as well but I have not been able to test. It also works on Windows XP/Vista and Linux.

ZoneAlarm

Published by Daniel Westerstal on February 12, 2008

Protecting your computer connected to the Internet is standard procedure as trojans and worms are floating around. ZoneAlarm is a free firewall (in its basic version) for home users that’s been around a while. It features basic firewall functionality and a stealth capability, which means that your computer is invisible to others on the Internet.

ZoneAlarm has five different tabs; Overview, Firewall, Program Control, Anti-virus monitoring and Alerts & Logs. In the overview tab you will see the total of”intrusion attempts” direct towards your computer, it also shows the number of programs secured for outbound protection. If you view the firewall tab you can set the Internet Zone Security to high, medium and low. In high-mode ZoneAlarm goes in to stealth mode, in medium your computer becomes visible. It’s also possible to set the security level within your own network or trusted zone.

The program can be quite irritating to setup the first time. Every application has to be given rights to the Internet, for example if you start Internet Explorer ZoneAlarm will pop-up and ask you if you want to give IE access. In the later versions of ZoneAlarm the program tries to auto-detect certain programs such as web-browsers and give them access. It doesn’t work for every application though.

ZoneAlarm is also one of the more secure and effective firewalls out there (when this is written). One drawback however is that it isn’t as light-weight as it used to be, it does take up more system resources than previous versions. ZoneAlarm is a neat free firewall, it has all the features that a home user needs and it works great with Windows Vista.

TrueCrypt

Published by Daniel Westerstal on January 30, 2008

Data protection is all the rage these days, and you can’t be too careful. TrueCrypt is an open source alternative to a number of encryption programs out there. Actually the program is based on E4M (Encryption for the Masses) released in 1997 and discontinued in 2000.In order to store encrypted data TrueCrypt uses system volumes, the program basically creates a password protected and encrypted volume. If you provide the right password the volume is unlocked and you can use it as any other volume on your computer.

The program has a number of encryption algorithms you can use including; AES, Serpent and Twofish. All of the encryption algorithms are standards with AES being the most widespread one. If you want an extra layer of security it’s possible to create volumes that requires two-factor authentication using a keyfile. In order to unlock the volume both a password and a special keyfile is needed. Creating a new volume is done using a simple and easy wizard, almost any user can do it. Mounting a volume (which needs to be done every time you restart the computer or dismounts the volume) is also easy. It’s a matter of choosing a volume file and clicking “mount” . It is entirely possible to have 250 GB of data or more encrypted and use it as any other normal volume, you can even install programs on your encrypted volume.

TrueCrypt has the ability to run in traveler mode, which means that the program does not have to be installed on the OS it runs. This means that it is possible to take TrueCrypt with you on trips using a USB-stick, so you can bring business secrets on the road without having to worry about the data getting into the wrong hands.

The program also comes with a number of language packs, as always with Open Source software these kind of packs differ in quality and translation. Also with a fairly straightforward program like TrueCrypt there is no need for language packs.

Undelete PLUS

Published by Daniel Westerstal on January 22, 2008

Every computer user has probably deleted a document and days later discovering that it was needed. There are several undelete applications on the market, but few are free and as uncomplicated as Undelete Plus.

According to the developers the program takes advantage of that Windows actually doesn’t delete a file until it really needs the occupied space for something. Undelete Plus lists recently deleted files after a scan of the hard drive and displays the recoverability of them. The scan is actually quite fast compared to other similar programs; it only took about six minutes to scan a 500 GB hard drive. There is filtering available, which means that you can filter out file-types and files that you don’t want in the scan.

We did some tests by “accidently” deleting an important word document, Undelete Plus managed to recover it fast and efficiently. Undelete Plus does have some limitations; larger files are harder to recover than smaller ones (since it’s a higher possibility that Windows overwrites a larger file). The program frequently displays files as having a “very good” rate of recoverability but when Undelete Plus tries to recover them it fails.

FileZilla

Published by Daniel Westerstal on January 18, 2008

FTP-programs aren’t exactly a big turn-on. There are a number of them out there on the market, all doing the same thing, managing/uploading and downloading files from FTP-servers. If you are looking for a good and free FTP-program FileZilla might be what you are after.

The interface in FileZilla is pretty much like in any other major FTP-programs, there are two columns; one for your local drive and one for the outside server. Moving files is just a matter of drag and drop. It is possible to customize the different file-views, for example you can select if file-size should be displayed or not among other things. The program can remember your column width preferences if you set it do so, which is neat.

FileZilla is packed with features, it supports FTP over SSL and SSH. It runs fine on Windows, Linux and MAC OS X. What’s even more impressing is the GSS-support, which means that it’s possible to send encrypted traffic from a client to a FTP-server. However it requires that Kerberos (a network authentication protocol) is installed on the client computer and that the server supports it.

In order to keep order of all your FTP-servers there is something called Site Manager. Except for a list of FTP-servers it’s also possible to choose the default directory of each server listed. If you are adding a new server don’t forget to click “Save and Exit”, otherwise your settings will be lost the next time you use the program. This is actually any annoying problem and is one of the things I really have against FileZilla.

FileZilla is one of the best FTP-programs out there, and it’s free. It caters to both basic users and corporations, in fact many large corporations use FileZilla as their default FTP-program.

Wakoopa

Published by Daniel Westerstal on January 15, 2008

Socializing on the Internet is all the rage these days. But we have not seen much socializing around software; Wakoopa is an effort to change that. Basically Wakoopa is a tracking program, which is installed on your desktop and tracks the different programs you are using. It doesn’t take up that much resources, installs and uninstalls easily.

The tracker then sends the information to a website profile for all your friends to look at. From the profile it’s possible to see how much you are using each program, what programs you are running in the background and so on. When you log in to wakoopa.com it’s possible to take look at the most popular programs right now and to use other social features.

Overall Wakoopa is neat, however the applications topping the lists is usually; Internet Explorer, Firefox and Microsoft Word. It’s also unclear to me what the real purpose of the application is, sure it’s possible to see what kind of software and games your friends are using, then what? The Wakoopa.com website is perhaps more interesting than the program itself. On the site it’s possible to see program usage and track their usage, but the again the points with Wakoopa remains sketchy.

Inkscape

Published by Daniel Westerstal on January 13, 2008

If you don’t want to fork out 300 bucks for Adobe Illustrator Inkscape is definitely an alternative. Inkscape is an open-source alternative to software like Illustrator, Xara and Freehand. It has most of the stuff commercial software has, but with a slightly different interface. The developers used the GNOME Human Interface guidelines when designing the program. It is pretty clear that Inkscape has a legacy from another open source illustration program, Xara Xtreme. As a matter of fact the two open-source projects are sharing some features and experiences.

If you come from an Adobe-world like me you will probably be annoyed of the different interface, but after a while one discovers that it’s pretty nice and even uses logic. Of course there is also the process of re-learning all the shortcut keys (why can’t someone standardize them).

A drawback with Inkscape is that it doesn’t handle file-formats from Adobe Illustrator and Freehand. So if you are going over to Inkscape, don’t forget to save your Adobe-files as SVG or EPS. Inkscape can save to some interesting formats, most noteworthy PDF. The PDF saving feature is fast and does the job without any problems at all.

I tested Inkscape with Windows Vista and had no stability problems whatsoever. It runs smooth, and feels a lot faster than similar Adobe products. It also takes considerably less time to load. There are also versions of Inkscape for MAC OS X and Linux. The program is considerably small; the installer is just 21 MB. It’s even possible to carry Inkscape around on a USB-stick.

There is one down-side with Inkscape, the program can’t export to Flash and it has no built in animation capability. But for pure illustration purposes Inkscape is quite competitive and is a great product for amateurs as well as pros.