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KeePass Password Safe Review

March 17th, 2009

KeePass Password Safe is an open source password manager. There are two version of KeePass: Classic and Professional. This review focuses on Classic Edition (version 1.16). One major difference between Professional and Classic is the requirement of Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 or greater. The full product comparison is available here. Both versions utilize the best and most secure encryption algorithms (i.e. AES and Twofish). It works with Microsoft Windows 98 and above. Additionally, the Professional Edition works with Linux, Mac OS X and BSD (which requires Mono 2.2 or greater).

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Jarte Word Processor Review

March 10th, 2009

Jarte is a free word processor based on Microsoft WordPad. It has features that WordPad lack but not as heavy as Microsoft Word. The install file is fairly light at 2.8 MB. There are 8 dictionaries included with the installation. Jarte does not perform background spell checking. This feature is available on the Jarte Plus ($19).  Jarte is also USB flash drive friendly as it can be run from it. The required disk space is 9 MB with all languages dictionary installed.

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File Compression Tools Test: WinZip, 7-Zip, and WinRar

February 24th, 2009

Back in the 1990s, WinZip and WinRAR are two of the most popular file compression tools. Both of them are commercial shareware products. In 2000, 7-Zip was released as an open source product. Nowadays, with large size of hard drive and fast Internet connection, the file compression tools might not be relevant. However, they are still great for software distribution – especially when exe download is not available. It is still interesting to see how well this file compression tools performed with large movies, music and document files. Please note, for mp3 and AVI or QuickTime files, there might not be a reduction of file size as they are already in compressed state. In this test, we benchmarked 7-zip, WinZip, and WinRAR.

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Everything Search Engine Review

February 10th, 2009

The Windows XP search function is good for basic files lookup. At the time Windows XP was released, the average hard drive size was about 40GB. Nowadays, large hard drives mean searching for a file using the built-in Windows XP search function can be slow. Microsoft offers Windows Desktop Search (built-in for Windows Vista; add-on for Windows XP or older) but the indexing process utilizes significant resources. For lighter solution, Everything Search Engine (“Everything”) is a great alternative.

Everything About Page

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Dropbox Review

January 27th, 2009

Dropbox is an online service that lets you store, sync and share files online. It works with Windows (XP and Vista), Mac OS and Linux. Previously available as invites only, Dropbox is now available to everyone. It is still in beta at the time of the review. The free registration has 2GB space allowance. Additional 50GB – which is the only option – is available for $99 a year (or $9.99 a month).

The free 2GB storage is handy as a USB drive replacement for shuttling files between work and home. Other great idea is as a home backup solution. This would reduce the hassle of getting external USB drive and plug it in to the computer at backup time.

The files on Dropbox system are stored in Amazon S3. Thus, Dropbox utilises most features and reliability of the S3. Dropbox works well behind the corporate firewall as long as port 80 or 443 (HTTP or HTTPS) are accessible.

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Auslogics Disk Defrag Review

January 13th, 2009

Windows built-in disk defragmenter is the stripped down version of the Diskeeper. The full version of Diskeeper has advanced features such as helping to prevent fragmentation of the MFT (Master File Tables) amongst others. For a free alternative, there is Auslogics Disk Defrag. Despite it has less features, Auslogics Disk Defrag is faster and has friendlier user interface. It is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000 (32-bit and 64-bit) and optimised for dual-core CPU.

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Top 5 Ubuntu 8.10 Features

December 30th, 2008

Released at the end of October 2008, the Ubuntu 8.10 receives number of features upgrade and bugs fixes. Technical details on what’s been updated or fixed under the hood are available from Ubuntu 8.10 Release Notes. The complete new features are available from the press release. Some of the new features are part of the Gnome 2.24 Desktop Environment . The following are the top 5 features in Ubuntu 8.10.

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