Category: Uncategorized

Secunia PSI

Published by Daniel Westerstal on November 23, 2008

If your computer is filled with a lot of different programs (like mine) chances are that it is a full time job to keep track of all software updates. This leaves your system open to vulnerabilities, which in a worst case scenario will get your system hacked.

Secunia PSI is a vulnerability scanner, which basically means that it scans all programs installed on your computer and updates them. Obviously you will get rid of having to check updates on your own, or even start programs to see if there are any updates available.

In addition to checking for updates Secunia also give you a complete overview of the different vulnerabilities using a graph. The software also rates the seriousness (or threat rating) of the vulnerabilities on your system. If you move the cursor over the threat level indicator Secunia will even suggest what a hacker can do to your system using the insecure program.

A scan for the different programs and vulnerabilities on your system does take some time, on a 1, 86 GHz Intel Core2Duo processor with an 80 GB hard-drive it took about 5 minutes to scan the whole system. Not too bad. The system scanned gets a rating, my system got 71%.

Most of the programs Secunia highlights needed updating, but for some weird reason it marked Firefox 3 as a severe security threat stating that “A hacker can typically use this to gain full control of your PC”. However when I started Firefox and checked for updates there were none to be found. After checking the Mozilla website for the latest version of Firefox it seems as Secunia sometimes give erroneous warnings.

Secunia also highlights the programs on your system that is no longer supported (end-of-life). This means that the program no longer receives security updates. There is also an option called Program Monitoring, which means that Secunia continuously monitors every program installed on the computer and checks of for updates on the fly.

A concern with live monitoring of programs is performance issues. The system does seem a little bit slower when Secunia is running, for a home PC it is however possible to turn Secunia program monitoring off and just run the program once a week. For business computers it is advisable to leave it on.

Secunia is a good piece of software and a must have for security conscious users. It is still a bit rough around the edges, but given that it is free Secunia has infinite value.

My Ubuntu Experience Part 6: Let’s wrap it up

Published by Daniel Westerstal on October 1, 2008

It is now finally time to wrap up the My Ubuntu Experience series, and it is not easy. After using Ubuntu for almost a year I must have come to some sort of conclusion, in fact it is my duty.

Ubuntu is a great operating system and is certainly a breath of fresh air for an avid Windows user. But it’s a little bit like a buying a new car and then realizing that it is just the same as your old one.

The real difference from Windows is of course that Ubuntu is free. Think of it this way, when you buy a new PC a percentage of the price you are paying will be for the operating system (Windows). If you buy your PC from a large manufacturer such as HP or Dell it will in most cases be packed with software you just want out the door, and Windows.

Ubuntu does what Windows does, and it also comes with software that people would want to use. It already got an office suite, a drawing program and a great e-mail client. So if you were a first-time computer buyer or PC-user Ubuntu would be great.

But most users are not. I have spent years building my software library for Windows, why should I go and throw all my expensive software out the door and move to Ubuntu? Exactly, there is no real compelling reason if I already have a working Windows computer with all the software I need.

There are areas where Ubuntu however can take market shares, the first one being schools. Why should a school pay high license fees to Microsoft when they can get it all for free? Another area where Ubuntu will excel is secondary computers. Most advanced users have several computers, for example I have a laptop. I always take it with me on business trips, when I am on the road all I need is an Office suite, Internet and security.

A third area where Ubuntu probably be popular is in markets where Microsoft has not achieved market dominance. For example in new economies and third world countries. For initiatives such as OLPC Ubuntu will make a great operating system.

It is clear that Ubuntu can fill voids in the market, and will probably also do some good in the process. As of right now it is not a complete replacement for Microsoft Windows, but that might change.

Picasa 2 – Manage your photos

Published by Daniel Westerstal on July 19, 2008

A down-side with the surge in digital photography is the pain of keeping track of all the photos. Google thinks that they have the answer to your prayers with Picasa 2. Picasa 2 creates an index of all your picture files on your computer and then categorizes them by year. After that you simply create an album and move the picture files that you want into that album.

The interface is pretty simple and a bit similar to Gmail. It’s possible to mark your photos with a star and describe them. Picasa 2 also has a number of features that enhances and alters your photos, such as red-eye reduction and cropping. However if you are not familiar with Google from other software or services Picasa’s interface may prove difficult to use.

The real power with Picasa 2 is the different exporting and importing options. It’s easy to import photos from any digital camera. I just plugged in my Canon Powershot SD600 and Picasa found the camera directly. Picasa 2 makes it easier to browse and select the photos that you want, compared to doing it directly in Windows.

A new feature in Picasa 2 is the web-album, which gives you the ability to upload pictures to online albums for other people to view. Albums can be password protected or public, you get 1GB storage for free. 10 GB of storage costs $20 / year and 40 GB $75 / year. Smugmug costs $39.95 a year for an unlimited amount of photos. So basically Googles storage offer does not impress. Other exporting options in Picasa 2 include sending the pictures to a blog in Blogger and burning pictures on a CD or DVD (which works great).

Overall Picasa 2 is a very good piece of software considering it’s free, basically it has it all. However the paid online album and storage is not as appealing as competing services.

LogMeIn – Access your PC or MAC from anywhere!

Published by Daniel Westerstal on July 14, 2008

The market for remote desktop software is surging as workers go mobile. Having access to your desktop computer at home or in the office from anywhere in the world is a huge advantage. A service capitalizing on the trend is LogMeIn, which offers a variety of solutions with the basic one completely for free.

LogMeIn is a web-based solution, which means that any computer with a web-browser can be used. Just log on to logmein.com and enter your username and password. Naturally there are some security concerns with having access to your computers online. Luckily LogMeIn has two layers of extra security, which can be applied. The first one is that a randomly generated code that has to be entered when logging in is sent to your e-mail. The other option is having LogMeIn create a sheet of randomly generated codes, which you can print and keep in your wallet.

The free and basic version of LogMeIn offers remote control with the ability to view your desktop. It is also possible sync data in the clipboard with the remote computer. LogMeIn Free is really all you need if you just want access to your desktop PCs from anywhere.

Another neat feature with LogMeIn Free is the ability to have several computers in the same account. Say for example that you want your two desktop PCs as well as a friend who constantly runs in to computer problems in the same account; it is possible with LogMeIn Free.

LogMeIn Pro, which is not free, offers extras such as the ability to drag and drop files between the connected computers, remote printing, file sync and drive mapping among other things. The Pro-version is $19.95 per month per computer, which might work for small businesses but is on the expensive side for an enthusiast with many computers.

The real problem with LogMeIn is the fact that the software only works on Windows machines (XP and Vista) and MACs. There is currently no Linux-version available.

LogMeIn Free is surprisingly fast and powerful, it does not need much configuration and setup. If you just want basic access to your computer from anywhere, LogMeIn Free is a great product.

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.