Windows Is Free (A TLUG Article)
Fascinating article, and absolutely true. I've been down that road before, and out of the vast number of people I've helped out on the classic casual basis (I tend to keep my knowledge quiet nowadays), I think there was one person who actually wanted to pay for Windows rather than grab a copy. We're probably talking about a sample of hundreds here.
I've taken a somewhat different view these days - that if I want something to succeed, I'll buy it. It's a bit like voting - if everyone says "I'm just one person, I'll never make a difference" then er, nothing would ever change.
Similarly, if nobody 'voted' for Windows then it wouldn't exist. Back in the 95 and Millennium days I would've taken that as a blessing; but these days it's really not that bad. Despite its teething troubles, I love Vista. Mac OS X is better still. Linux is... as the article says, free. (there are sacrifices).
But I'm a minority. Most people would just rather grab a copy of the best thing on the market. This comes as no surprise to me, but it's kind of amusing to think that reducing the crackdown on piracy would actually help Windows to remain popular.
One last thought - Apple don't protect their software. Yet I bought Tiger (OSX 10.4), and at about 1.5x the price it's possible to buy a home license for 5 computers. What a bargain! If I get a second Mac, I'd happily pay this for the next upgrade. Why? Because fairness needs to be equated into it too... if the company is fair to me, and doesn't assume that I'm a criminal (this is actually quite important), then I'm happier to be fair to them in return.
Maybe this is why kids are such yobs these days, because we're all so busy accusing them of being yobs that they figure they might as well actually *be* yobs - same hassle, but more fun. An interesting metaphor perhaps, but I digress...
Friday, 17 August 2007
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Mozy Online Backup: Free. Automatic. Secure.
Mozy Online Backup: Free. Automatic. Secure.
I've seen quite a few online backup ideas - first there's your own FTP storage on a nice big web host such as Dreamhost, but that requires you to do things manually and can be cumbersome. Dreamhost are also less than reliable these days.
For those on the Mac platform there's .Mac, but it's expensive.
If you have a gmail (cough, sorry, Googlemail) account there's gDrive as a free answer, but it's a bit "hacky" and you'll never know if Google might object and put a stop to it. Again you would need some software or personal routine for actually backing up your files.
Enter Mozy. Seems great! You get 2GB of free storage for your online backups, and software that automatically does routine online backups for you. The first one might be big, but after that it does incremental backups each time and so becomes less noticable. Your data is also encrypted, so nobody at Mozy will go er, mozying around your data, even if they wanted to. All this for free - it's good stuff!
Don't count on using it for sharing files (use Rapidshare or your own FTP for that) - it's purely for backup, and the software and general structure of the system tries to ensure this remains the case. In my opinion this is fine, it keeps the free version of the service speedy and reliable as it doesn't have the entire internet's worth of software/movie pirates piling onto it.
If you're on ADSL like me, then the prospect of uploading more than 2GB in your *lifetime* should send shivers down your spine, because uploads on ADSL are slow and drastically affect the line's performance. I think 2GB will more than suffice for most of my really important stuff such as documents, email and bookmarks. However you can get unlimited storage for $4.95/month if you feel the need.
It supports the Mac now too, which is great as I use both - and the site keeps track of each machine individually, including when you last backed it up.
One other thing - you can throttle the bandwidth so that it doesn't hammer your connection, and even choose the times in which the throttle applies (I went for 16:00 to 03:00 when we're all usually busy with the internet at home)
The only remaining problem is photos. A good photography session can bring back 2GB worth of raw files (digital negatives if you prefer), which can be worth keeping especially if you get some really high quality shots. Some photos can be priceless to yourself, even if they're worthless to others. I'm open to suggestions for offline backup solutions here, but I think a DAT drive (something like a DDS4 which is 20GB uncompressed) would be a decent answer - £50 from eBay, tapes are £2-4 each, and 20GB is enough for quite a few photos - even in raw format. The tapes are small, just sling one in your bag and store it in your drawer at work.
I've seen quite a few online backup ideas - first there's your own FTP storage on a nice big web host such as Dreamhost, but that requires you to do things manually and can be cumbersome. Dreamhost are also less than reliable these days.
For those on the Mac platform there's .Mac, but it's expensive.
If you have a gmail (cough, sorry, Googlemail) account there's gDrive as a free answer, but it's a bit "hacky" and you'll never know if Google might object and put a stop to it. Again you would need some software or personal routine for actually backing up your files.
Enter Mozy. Seems great! You get 2GB of free storage for your online backups, and software that automatically does routine online backups for you. The first one might be big, but after that it does incremental backups each time and so becomes less noticable. Your data is also encrypted, so nobody at Mozy will go er, mozying around your data, even if they wanted to. All this for free - it's good stuff!
Don't count on using it for sharing files (use Rapidshare or your own FTP for that) - it's purely for backup, and the software and general structure of the system tries to ensure this remains the case. In my opinion this is fine, it keeps the free version of the service speedy and reliable as it doesn't have the entire internet's worth of software/movie pirates piling onto it.
If you're on ADSL like me, then the prospect of uploading more than 2GB in your *lifetime* should send shivers down your spine, because uploads on ADSL are slow and drastically affect the line's performance. I think 2GB will more than suffice for most of my really important stuff such as documents, email and bookmarks. However you can get unlimited storage for $4.95/month if you feel the need.
It supports the Mac now too, which is great as I use both - and the site keeps track of each machine individually, including when you last backed it up.
One other thing - you can throttle the bandwidth so that it doesn't hammer your connection, and even choose the times in which the throttle applies (I went for 16:00 to 03:00 when we're all usually busy with the internet at home)
The only remaining problem is photos. A good photography session can bring back 2GB worth of raw files (digital negatives if you prefer), which can be worth keeping especially if you get some really high quality shots. Some photos can be priceless to yourself, even if they're worthless to others. I'm open to suggestions for offline backup solutions here, but I think a DAT drive (something like a DDS4 which is 20GB uncompressed) would be a decent answer - £50 from eBay, tapes are £2-4 each, and 20GB is enough for quite a few photos - even in raw format. The tapes are small, just sling one in your bag and store it in your drawer at work.
Is Windows Vista unable to find its own drivers? Here's your answer.
Sick of Vista not being able to find its own drivers when you plug in something as simple as a USB pendrive? Even sick of the workaround of pointing it to c:\windows\system32\driverstore over and over and over?
Yeah, so was I.
After some rummaging on Google I found this article: Pete & Laura's World: How to fix Vista driver cache
The linked blog entry contains the commands you need to put into a batch file (just create a text file and rename it to something.bat) to rebuild Windows Vista's driver cache, so that it can find its own drivers again. This is the first answer I've seen to the problem that actually works, at least without messing around turning off UAC and such - run the batch file as Administrator, and 2 seconds later your problems are solved. Fantastic.
My understanding of the problem is that badly behaved drivers (usually designed for Windows XP) try to mess with the driver cache, which has changed format in Vista. This corrupts it, and because Microsoft thought it was safe now (with all the UAC protect-you-against-yourself security features they put in) they yanked the routine from XP which used to rebuild it on startup if it was found to be corrupted. As XP drivers sometimes work with Vista - particularly with printers etc - desparate users such as myself force them on and although the hardware works, the driver cache breaks.
In Microsoft's defence they do actually warn you not to install unsigned drivers, with a big red box, but who takes any notice of those when you just want your printer to work?
Apparently Microsoft know about this only too well and are bitterly regretting the decision, and intend to eventually bring out an update to fix it. Seemingly they don't regret it enough to fix it any time soon, though! For those who are tired of waiting, this is a great relief.
Here's that blog entry again - go check out the fix.
Yeah, so was I.
After some rummaging on Google I found this article: Pete & Laura's World: How to fix Vista driver cache
The linked blog entry contains the commands you need to put into a batch file (just create a text file and rename it to something.bat) to rebuild Windows Vista's driver cache, so that it can find its own drivers again. This is the first answer I've seen to the problem that actually works, at least without messing around turning off UAC and such - run the batch file as Administrator, and 2 seconds later your problems are solved. Fantastic.
My understanding of the problem is that badly behaved drivers (usually designed for Windows XP) try to mess with the driver cache, which has changed format in Vista. This corrupts it, and because Microsoft thought it was safe now (with all the UAC protect-you-against-yourself security features they put in) they yanked the routine from XP which used to rebuild it on startup if it was found to be corrupted. As XP drivers sometimes work with Vista - particularly with printers etc - desparate users such as myself force them on and although the hardware works, the driver cache breaks.
In Microsoft's defence they do actually warn you not to install unsigned drivers, with a big red box, but who takes any notice of those when you just want your printer to work?
Apparently Microsoft know about this only too well and are bitterly regretting the decision, and intend to eventually bring out an update to fix it. Seemingly they don't regret it enough to fix it any time soon, though! For those who are tired of waiting, this is a great relief.
Here's that blog entry again - go check out the fix.
Free CD/DVD burning software
Unimpressed by the overly bloated Nero Burning ROM (and also its price tag) when all you want is a simple CD burner? Me too.
As a Windows Vista user I have some simple CD/DVD burning support built-in, but I find it unsuitable... fiddle as I might with the settings, it's a choice of either a UDF disc that doesn't seem to work on Mac or Linux (boo, hiss!) - no matter what version of UDF you set - or a 'mastered' disc which creates a fairly standard ISO9660 disc but insists on creating an image beforehand which takes as long as the burning itself.
This is where third party burning software usually comes in.
CD Burner XP Pro was good, but it was last updated in 2004 and doesn't support Vista.
Windows Fanatics pointed out (some time ago) in this blog entry an app called FinalBurner. And hoorah, it works! It's not pretty but it's relatively easy to use, low overhead, and does the job reliably.
Until there's a Windows equivalent of Linux's fantastic "K3B" burning software, this is a good option.
As a Windows Vista user I have some simple CD/DVD burning support built-in, but I find it unsuitable... fiddle as I might with the settings, it's a choice of either a UDF disc that doesn't seem to work on Mac or Linux (boo, hiss!) - no matter what version of UDF you set - or a 'mastered' disc which creates a fairly standard ISO9660 disc but insists on creating an image beforehand which takes as long as the burning itself.
This is where third party burning software usually comes in.
CD Burner XP Pro was good, but it was last updated in 2004 and doesn't support Vista.
Windows Fanatics pointed out (some time ago) in this blog entry an app called FinalBurner. And hoorah, it works! It's not pretty but it's relatively easy to use, low overhead, and does the job reliably.
Until there's a Windows equivalent of Linux's fantastic "K3B" burning software, this is a good option.
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