Category: software

password managers

I was going to try copying all my passwords from Vault to KeePass tonight. I really like Vault, but it uses an unencrypted database, and it’s not cross-platform. KeePass runs on both PC and Mac (via KeePassX), and uses good encryption. Unfortunately, I just figured out that I have a little over 200 passwords in my Vault file. It’s going to take quite a while to do all that copying and pasting. Vault isn’t really structured like KeePass either, so there’s no easy way I could cobble together an export/import program. I have to decide whether or not I want to bite the bullet on this right now, or wait. I guess it’ll only get worse if I wait, right?

eEye Blink

I tried out the free Blink Personal Edition software from eEye today on my home computer. I have a lot of respect for eEye, so I was hoping this would be a good piece of software. Unfortunately, I had compatibility problems with a couple of apps right away, and a noticable bit of system slowdown. If I had time to work through this stuff, it might prove to be a good app. I really don’t have the time to mess around with it much right now though. For now, I’m still just using F-Prot anti-virus and Spybot S&D for spyware.

Ray Noorda

I just found out that Ray Noorda died today. The linked article calls him the “father of network computing,” and I guess that’s accurate. I used NetWare for years, starting with version 2.15c, I think, in the early nineties. I earned my CNE certification when NetWare 3 was big. I switched allegiance from NetWare to Windows NT grudgingly, in the late nineties, and by that time, Noorda was gone from Novell.

The obituary on the Canopy site says “In lieu of flowers, the family requests that each one of us put in a little extra effort today to enable someone to reach their fullest potential in their work — that’s what Ray would have done.” I’ll try.

podcatchers

I’ve been using Juice to download and manage podcasts on my Mac for quite some time now. When Apple added podcast support to iTunes, I though about just using that, but there are a few things I don’t like about the way iTunes does stuff. Also, iTunes doesn’t have BitTorrent support, and a couple of the podcasts I subscribe to use BT. Juice is pretty good, but it’s a bit slow on my machine, and there are a few quirks. I’d like to try out Transistr, but it’s been in “coming soon” mode since January, I think. This recent blog post indicates that they’re making progress on it, though. I don’t know if there are any other good podcatchers for the Mac.

Adium

Some time ago, I tried to set up an IM client on my Mac that would connect to my company’s Sametime server. It might have been an older version of Adium, or it might have been Mercury. I can’t quite remember. Either way, I couldn’t get it to work, and just gave up. Well, I took another shot at it today, this time using the current version of Aduim, and it worked like a charm.

The official Sametime client for Mac is in beta right now. It looks pretty good, from what I’ve seen, but it’s nice to have something that works well in the meantime.

goodbye Vista

I decided to give up on Vista for now. I restored the backup of my original XP install on my laptop. (Done with Acronis True Image, by the way.) I think if I had a much more powerful laptop, the Vista beta might be usable, but it’s just too slow on a 2-year-old Gateway machine, with 512 MB of RAM and a low-end video card.

I am still looking forward to the final release of Vista, but I doubt I’d upgrade either my desktop or laptop to Vista; I’ll need to wait until the next time I buy new machines.

Free Anti-Virus Protection

Just for yuks, I sent off for an activation code for Active Virus Shield, AOL’s new free anti-virus software. I’m not sure if I can talk myself into actually installing it on one of my own machines, though. I’m kind of scared to put anything related to AOL on my computers. Given their previous history, I’m afraid I might never get it off again.

Nero

I just bought the newest version of Nero from Best Buy. As with a lot of software that comes out these days, it seems to be a bit bloated with unnecessary features, and it (of course) wants to take over nearly every file type imaginable. Really, I just want decent software for burning CDs and DVDs. I don’t need ANOTHER music player or photo organizer! On the plus side, it does come with a nice video player that does a decent job of playing DVDs. (My DVD drive didn’t come with decent DVD software, strangely enough.)

spyware

I bought CounterSpy about a year ago. I used it on my home PC for awhile, but I started having problems with it at some point and uninstalled it. It’s always worked fine on my laptop, though, so I figured it was probably something with the machine itself. Well, I’ve since replaced almost every part in that machine and reinstalled XP. I’ve been meaning to reinstall CounterSpy and try it out again, but I haven’t had the time. I just realized that the one-year license was almost up, so I figured I should install it, see if it worked, and decide whether or not to renew the license. I gave it a shot, and, unfortunately, it appears to have screwed up my machine again. I had to uninstall it. I like the guys at Sunbelt, so I feel kind of bad about abandoning CounterSpy, but they just don’t seem to have gotten their act together enough to produce a solid product that’ll work on my computer without any trouble.

I’ve been looking around at other anti-spyware packages. PC Magazine has some good stuff on anti-spyware software. Spy Sweeper seems to be pretty popular, and well-reviewed. Really, I’m careful enough with my own computer that I probably don’t need anti-spyware software, but it still seems like a good idea to have something. I could also just stick with Spybot S&D, which is pretty good for a free program.