04 Feb 2006
Flock is based on the Firefox browser. Flock’s mods allow it to be used easier with social websites like del.icio.us, flickr, etc.
Because Flock is a branch of Firefox it will be interesting to see if it integrations the updates that are being made to Firefox. The security updates could become a problem in Flock.
And it appears that Microsoft has finally gotten serious about Internet Explorer with IE7. With the new Live website Microsoft is introducing cool new technology. Flock may have a problem maintaining mindshare
Flock
technorati tags: research
02 Feb 2006
Hamachi is a hybrid p2p vpn style tool. Hamachi allows you to make secure encrypted connections between PCs connected to the Internet.
Hamachi is relatively simple and easy to get going. I do not have a real use for it at the moment. But it could be a good tool for securely sharing files and some other resources.
01 Jan 2006
del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. I checked it out a few times in the past but I never quite got it.
A few months back I found myself using a number of different PCs regularly. The Internet is a key resource for my job so I collect a lot of bookmarks. More and more the bookmarks I needed were on another PC.
I tried most of the bookmark synchronizers out there. Even cobbled a few Python scripts together. In the end nothing seemed to work for what I needed.
del.icio.us has a couple features that sold me.
- All of the bookmarks I saved on del.icio.us could be accessed from any browser on any PC where there was an Internet connection.
- Each bookmark can be tagged with one or more tags to categorize them.
- There are a few ways to slice and dice the tags and bookmarks that really helps when finding stuff.
- And then I figured out the social part of it. del.icio.us shows how many other folks bookmarked the same webpage. A couple of clicks and you can see what other bookmarks are related.
And then del.icio.us went down!
That day or so could have been really tough. del.icio.us had become a big part of how I did things. I was right smack in the middle of planning a major upgrade and all of my resources were stashed on del.icio.us!
About a week before I was thinking how much it would suck if something happened to del.icio.us. So a crude wget script was born to backup my bookmarks. It was scheduled to run automatically.
When del.icio.us went down at least there was an xml file with my bookmarks. Between building a stylesheet and looking for alternatives I came across Scuttle.org
A half hour after downloading it to the Fedora box it had my bookmarks imported. While Scuttle is not quite del.icio.us I was able to get back to work.
01 Jan 2006
Monad scripts could have a big impact on the value of existing tools used to manage Windows PCs, servers and networks.
Tools like SMS Server and MOM are GUI oriented tools for managing larger numbers of Microsoft platforms. While graphic user interfaces lessen the learning curve their value drops after folks reach a level of proficiency with the tasks. At that point a command line is more productive.
Command line tools are also better for automation.
SMS Server and similiar tools generate a lot of revenue for Microsoft and the other vendors. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft neuters Monad in some fashion to avoid damaging those revenue streams.
My hope is that they will take Ray Ozzie’s memo to heart and not tie Monad’s fortunes to the other products. It is a difficult call because of the potential of Monad v/s the need for the companies to make money.
01 Jan 2006
There is a problem with TightVNC after applying a Windows security update (which one? I’ll update this later)
- The issue is related to the cross-site vulnerability in Windows html based help files
- The issue occurs on a PC running the TightVNC server which is left at the login prompt
- The problem fills the Application Log with error events
- The issue occurs with both the stable and unstable versions of TightVNC
Solution: Switch to RealVNC
RealVNC was formed from UK based AT&T Laboratories in Cambridge. They are the original creators of VNC. The RealVNC company also provides commercially supported versions of VNC.
There is a free download available.
The RealVNC client/server is lacking a few features found in TightVNC.
- No toolbar–The toolbar based options are available in the Control Menu (the little icon in the upper left of most windows)
- No file transfers–TightVNC allowed files to be transfered with the client. That is not available in RealVNC.