Aug 27, 2005
The somewhat esoteric title of this post comes from a cricket bowling action. But it really sums up the (nice) surprises Google offers its clients. But first the good news for all you non-North American readers. GMail has finally gone public and is available for the US/Canada. The service will be rolled-out in phases to other regions.
In a departure from the usual service signup, GMail is currently available only to mobile phone users. The service sends an SMS invitation that you use to sign-up to the service. And your registration too is via SMS. This radical departure from the usual mail invitation process was necessiated to prevent spammer and robots from setting up disposable email IDs that when misused would have lost GMail considerable goodwill.
But Google is not just a search engine. And more recently a free web-based mail service. The company also offers a great software collection. Mostly of which is free with a few commercial versions. But even these often have a feature-limited free version available as well.
But before we snarf our way through the pack, do check out the new Jabber-based GoogleTalk client. The Beta is available for Windows 2000/XP/2003. With Linux and MacOS versions planned. It supports both text-based messaging and very clear VoIP. You need a GMail account ID to login to the service. The interface is simple. But the Beta has an annoying bug that only lets it connect to the Web via a proxy server! So unless you run a proxy, GoogleTalk won’t connect!
The chat interface is quite basic. There is a level meter for microphone and speaker. As well as a VoIP connection quality of service meter similar to a mobile phone’s signal strength display. VoIP seems very dependent on what your connection supports. I was audible to a friend. But his responses appeared to be coming from deep under the sea with lots of latency.
If you have a GMail ID. Don’t want to use VoIP. And are unable to get Google Talk to connect. Try any instant messaging client (Trillian Pro, GAIM) that supports the Jabber protocol. Your server name is talk.google.com. You can also apply command line hacks like /nomutex to open more than one instance including signing in twice using different IDs.
Other command line tips include /forcestart, /autostart, /register, /checkupdate, /nogaiaauth, /plaintextauth, /factoryreset, /gaiaserver and /create_sesion. Or you could try /mailto someiD@mail.com to open a GMail “Compose mail” dialog in your browser.
Equally interesting is Google Earth, a rich mapping application that helps you fly through a global database of Earth imagery. To which I was introduced a few day ago by my friend Jagan P. He’s very interested in old military aircraft (war birds) and runs the high-traffic Warbirds of India web site.
Warbirds of India now features Google Earth-derived imagery of the Indian Air Force Museum big aircraft collection piled together at one end of Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Google Earth needs a 128 kbps or better connection. But I was able to run it using my 115 kbps CDMA wireless connection too. The interface is very easy to use. Just type in the first search layer (e.g. India). Or pan-scan the globe to find your country of choice. Then zoom in slowly using the mouse wheel. Click and grab shifts map focus. You can also change viewing angles to look at 3-dimensional (3D) buildings. The bottom of the screen window displays the map coordinates. I was even able to locate my parents house complete with the 4 large trees that surround it! I then zipped off to Chandigarh and the Himalayan foot hills. Unfortunately the day the image was captured there was low cloud cover. It was hard to view ground features through all those white blobs.
Google Earth’s available in a free version with limited zoom and focus and a $400 Pro edition. Luckily the latter’s available as a 7-day trial that superimposes Trial Mode on the image. You have to register for a license key. Google Earth uses the commercial Keyhole satellite service for maps combined with Google’s native search APIs. Most images were taken over the past 3 years but not all areas are equally well represented. For more on coverage, click here. There’s also a whole site dedicated to Google Earth hacks.
And then there’s Blogger.com which is one of the more famous and widely used blogging services. Not strictly a downloadable application. Its actually a web-based service. Where you can register for free and begin posting your first blog really fast. Blogger offers its own free Blogspot publishing service. Or you can host your blog on your own server; as I did for a while. There’s a very vibrant user community. Which is good because Blogger Support is terrible. Yes, there is an FAQ and a Knowledge base. But unless the problem fits the solution exactly, there’s little hope of issue resolution. Harsh words perhaps, but I’ve been at the receiving end of the stick for a personal blog. Unfortunately spammers seems to have ‘discovered’ Blogger and there are lots of single post Blogs acting as gateway pages.
Equally well-known is the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer and for Firefox. Besides the usual web search, pop-up blocking, page rank display, and search term highlighting within a results page. This toolbar offers an AutoLink feature linking (US addresses only) a favored dining-out or vacation spot to a map of the area. AutoLink can also track consignment numbers to delivery status, VIN numbers (US) to vehicle history and publication ISBN numbers to Amazon.com listings. AutoFill saves form data and let’s you insert it with a single mouse click. Private credit card information are encrypted into a protected container to prevent misuse.
The SpellCheck (derived from GMail’s inline spell-checker) tracks spellings in any web form including web-based email and discussion forums. Did you know that spellers derived from the Google edition are available as plug-ins for the other text area-based editors. As also for blogging tools like the open-source WordPress?
The Toolbar’s WordTranslator feature is meant for non-English speakers. And hovering the mouse cursor over an English word offers its Chinese (Traditional, Simplified), Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, German and Spanish versions. There’s also a web-based version that you can use to translate between 116 different languages, including a few weird one like Bork (Swedish Chef), Elmer Fudd (from Bugs Buggy cartoons who swaps W for R), and Klingon (of Star Trek fame).
The Google Desktop search application offers full text indexing for email, files, music, photos, chat transcripts and web pages viewed. It also helps gather live Web data using its Sidebar feature. This displays new email, weather and stock information, personalized news, RSS/Atom feeds, and more. Quick Find launches applications and displays search results as you type without opening the browser. Beta 2 extends Outlook integration so you can launch the application from within Outlook and view the results immediately. Google Desktop also offers index encryption. And a Developer SDK and plug-ins are available. As is a separate Enterprise Edition.
The Hello service is an extension of the Picasa utility. And lets you connect directly with friends to share digital pictures. Its a sort of instant picture messenger. You select the images to share and click send. And supports exchange of full-resolution, print-quality images.
Picasa is a neat image manager. That’s great if you have a digital camera. Its far more powerful that the free tools included with most cameras. As also Windows XP. Of course this is not Adobe PhotoExpress (which is actually a scaled down version of the Photoshop graphics editing suite). But Picasa is more than adequate for what if offers. Use it find, edit and share pictures stored on your hard disk. Every time Picasa is launched, it auto-locates images and sorts them into albums organized by date with recognizable folder names. Also available is editing tools that let you clean up images. Then email or print photos, burn to a CD-/RVD, post to a blog or share via Hello.
And a quick view of something non-Google. PassMark DiskCheckup (free for personal use) uses SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology) interface between the PC’s BIOS and installed hard disks to monitors possible long term drive failure including Spin Up times, start/stops, hours powered on and temperature. DiskCheckup displays the current SMART values with the Threshold value for a particular attribute. as well as drive serial number, model number, cylinders, tracks and sectors per track.
That’s enough for you to chew on. I’m on a two week hiatus from the column. And the next edition will be on September 19, 2005. Be there.
Aug 21, 2005
Change is inevitable. And this column’s frequency on Cyber India Online (CIOL) is changing soon too. My editors have announced beginning September 2005 the Freeloader column ceases publishing. I’m now beginning to understand what fighting soldiers go though mentally when facing impending death (and doom). It’s never been so hard to put together a column as this one. And I think preparing the next (and final) one too will be hard. But I’m not going quietly. More details about what I plan in next week’s edition.
I think the CIOL version’s being axed because it no longer fits my publisher’s strategic publishing goals. And perhaps because I’ve been somewhat difficult in adapting a column with its roots in reviewing free software available on the Internet. To one addressing a narrow developer band interested in programming content!
Readers really interested in staying abreast of open-source should bookmark its Mecca: SourceForge.Net. This portal lists the 10 most popular downloads and 10 most active projects. It also showcases one project every month. And August 2005’s choice is Gourmet Recipe Manager (GRM). Although designed for Linux, GRM also runs on Windows with GTK installed. And makes it ”easy to search for recipes, generate shopping lists, and import recipes from other sources, such as MealMaster archives or Web pages. Gourmet’s shopping list generator includes features such as tracking ingredients users already have and sorting their list into categories.” Sourceforge is one of over 10 separate open-source technology focused portals offered by OSTG (Open Source Technology Group).
Speaking of GTK, GAIM’s another great application that also uses this ‘Kit. GAIM’s an excellent multi-service, and platform, open-source messaging application. You can access AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Zephyr and Gadu-Gadu messaging services simultaneously. Even while using more than one subscription for each service. Gaim 1.0.5 release offers several major security fixes. As well as privacy improvements like requiring authorization for Yahoo! buddy requests. And a new ability to define an on-quit message for IRC channels.
Another application I use a lot is WinRAR. This file archiving utility backs up data and can reduce the size of email attachments. It decompresses its native RAR format, as well as ZIP, ARJ, LZH, 7z (7-zip), ACE, GZ2 (Gzip2) and BZ2 archive file formats. However you can only create new archives in RAR and ZIP formats. You can customize the application using special themes. WinRAR 3.50 now supports Microsoft’s multi-volume .CAB archive format. And integrates with Windows 64-bit edition shell. An updated archive wizard lets users add a password when updating an archive. Typically you can only set passwords when creating a new archive file. WinRAR 3.50 is available as a 30-day trial.
Or if you want more power for almost nothing consider its free alternative: 7-Zip. This open-source utility can browse, decompress and archive to its native 7z format as well as ZIP (including Deflate64), GZIP, TAR and BZIP2. It can only browse and extract files from RAR, CAB, ARJ, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB, and SPLIT. But I don’t really miss not having RAR compression (a proprietary format). And to see just what I was missing (if anything), I decided on a test. I used a 42 kB Word (.DOC) file as the source. Then applied various archive formats to it. 7z emerged the clear winner at 8,750 bytes. Runner-up was RAR at 9,828 bytes. Followed by .GZ (9,875 bytes) and .ZIP (9,996 bytes). BZip2 was the least efficient at 10 kB.
Subsequent to last week’s review of Nostrum AudioManage, now available in v1.20f, the developer clarified that you could add MP3 CD-ROMs to your library. And while their contents would be listed as duplicates (assuming the identical track exists on your hard drive), there is a tiny CD overlay icon to indicate the duplicate source is a CD. And as a responsible AudioManage fan I also recommend an immediate upgrade to the latest 1.20f release as this includes several bug fixes that improve usability.
And while on the topic of updates, if you still haven’t installed Microsoft’s August patches. There’s no time like the present. Updates released are:
I was unable to install (and test) a copy of Microsoft’s OneCare service as the Beta is limited to US and Canada. But The Flexbeta site has a very extensive review of the service. Read Beta Testing Windows OneCare. And in case you missed the news, Microsoft’s clarified its Anti-Spyware product Beta won’t end any time soon. Windows AntiSpyware (will be) available at no charge to licensed users who validate their Windows install through Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA). Microsoft plans a separate paid enterprise version for companies wanting to centrally manage their AntiSpyware infrastructure.
If you use Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 be advised of a newly discovered flaw that could allow attack through arbitrary code execution. The French Security Incident Response Team that discovered the flaw published full disclosure to the Internet! The hole is created by a memory corruption error when executing msdds.dll object as an ActiveX control. Theoretically this DLL can be used to take control after a Web page designed to exploit the vulnerability is opened. However the problem DLL has only been traced to computers with Microsoft’s Visual Studio installed.
And if you were wondering why no news, or advance on combating the Zotob worm. Its because none is really needed. As the code suffers an internal flaw that cause it to self-destruct! A key mistake was in causing infected computer to continuously reboot instead of more productively spreading the virus. Zotob lacks a destructive pay load but includes backdoor capabilities using an IRC chat channel. And if you have applied the patches listed earlier in this column, Zotob won’t infect you as the vulnerability has been closed by Microsoft. f you want to see how Zotob affects computers, Trend Micro has a very nice process map.
Stay safe until the next time we meet!
Aug 14, 2005
OK, I took advantage of India’s Independence Day weekend to torture test Nostrum’s Audio Manage 1.20c add-in for Windows Explorer. Released as a full-featured 30-day trial, its registration costs $19.95, but up to August 21, 2005, the developer’s offering it for $9.90.
Actually, I’ve been beta testing AudioManage (AM) for the past 2 weeks. And bar a few annoyances that the developer promptly purged from the application, found it a very user-friendly utility. That helped me add value to my reasonably vast (22+ GB) collection of MP3 and WMA files.
AM is a Windows Explorer add-in. That unless specifically configured doesn’t modify physical media. Instead it creates virtual folders on-the-fly to present a categorized view of your library. Catalog information is stored in a highly-compressed database that’s never more than ten percent of the total physical collection size. AM supports all Windows audio formats and even indexes audio CDs and video files. Files unavailable on the local file system are tracked. And you’ll be prompted to insert the appropriate disk when selecting it for playback.
While AM works on the fly you need to remember that changes made to file properties aren’t applied to the physical file unless you so customize AM. To apply such a system-wide configuration, right-click the AM icon in My Computer, select Properties, then enable Options > Track Information > Update File Tags immediately.
After you install AM, on first-run it scans local folders for audio files. The default scans the My Documents folder since this is where most users store files. However you can add custom drives/folders to be scanned. AM indexes the physical files, saved play lists and even video files by indexing the accompanying audio track.
Included with AM is a full-featured ID3 tag editor. You can modify the file’s title, artist, album, genre, year and track number. To maximize productivity, there’s a pop-up listing of artists and albums in the database. You can also add comments and lyric information to each file tag.
Media players supporting lyrics (e.g. Winamp, JetAudio, etc) scroll the lines in a pop-up window as the song plays. This feature is wasted on me as I use the free and minimalistic CoolPlayer that eschews such extras for a tiny footprint yet includes an equalizer and preamp.
The degree of control AM afford the user is immense. You can view your collection by Album, Artist, Album + Artist, Genre, Title, Year, Compilation and Playlist. My collection’s shortcomings were apparent immediately. As I never previously put much emphasis on ID3 tags, I have nearly 1 GB worth of files missing album, artist, genre and year data!
In the by Album listing, right-clicking displays a dialog where you can manage the album’s properties. You can access standard Explorer features like open, explore, copy, rename and delete. As well as AM-specific controls like organize files (auto-rename, re-organize), search (MP3: eMusic, CD: Amazon) and edit album properties including searching the freedb database or Amazon for cover art and other details.
One intermittent, yet annoying bug, seems to be caused by these corrupt tags. Often after updating file tags manually, older album details would remain visible in spite of refreshing the view several times over. I’m not sure if this is caused by AudioManage or Windows, but I resolved it by upgrading tags, followed by purging the database before recreating the catalog. However as this method takes a lot of time its faster to just Synchronize Audio Library.
Each AM folder view works just like Windows Explorer. You can view folders by large and small icons, list and details. In the last view, for Albums and Artist + Album, AM displays the number of tracks in the grouping. When you drill-down into each album’s contents, the details view lists the complete tag information as well as the physical file location. And this is actually the easiest way to mass-update the tags.
The Related Links folder lists special offers from affiliates like Amazon, Allposters, eMusic, Comcast and other companies (needs an active Internet connection). You also register your copy or view registration details from this sub-folder. A powerful Search feature (also accessible via Search Audio Library in the Explorer toolbar) lets you locate a track by artist, title, album, lyrics and comments. You can save searches into the Search Results folder which displays custom search collections as well as results of last search performed.
The Tools folder helps track management. Your collection is grouped by bit rate, duration and file type. As well as by location which is invaluable if you have indexed content stored on a removable disk. Similarity compares track titles and displays duplicates. It adds a number after the file name to group files that seem identical. In my collection I had an Elvis track repeated across 4 separate albums (as studio out takes, live and released versions). Similarity revealed 2 identical out takes; one of which I then deleted.
However the Duplicate view is even more powerful as it compares file checksums and can will identify identical files even if one has been accidentally mis-tagged or named.
There’s also a separate Loan Manager to record media files lent out to or borrowed from others. You need to first add peoples names to the Manage People folder. However this feature works only for physical compilations added to the catalog. And for this reviewer who has a copy of most CDs stored on the hard drive for faster access, things get confusing. Unless I index the source CD I can’t track who I lend it to. But if I index this source disk, AM treats the local file copy as a duplicate!
Registering AM is also quite easy. And you begin the process from within the application. The developer uses PayPal, but you don’t need a PayPal account to transact. And can use any credit card. On registration, you will be sent a copy of your registration code by email; in case you need to reinstall the application at a later date.
Overall AudioManage is an audio file library that I highly recommend. Don’t wait. Go download a copy now. And if you didn’t wait for my review, and are already using the tool, do visit the web site to update to AudioManage 1.20c (released Aug 14, 2005] which fixes several bugs including a critical issue with AM’s registration system caused by a Windows XP/2003 security update.
Aug 09, 2005
A couple of weeks ago I’d mentioned how insecure Firefox’s Greasemonkey extension was. Greasemonkey allows users to change a web site’s default style and behavior. Originally intended to help resolve browser-specific bugs that seem to plague web site development. Somewhere along the way it became a convenient way to make web site more user-specific.
The buggy version previously mentioned allowed a (potentially malicious) web site script to probe a user’s computer and view contents of folders and files stored on the hard disk! Well, this critical bug has been patched. There are two separate versions of the extension now available. One is meant for users and is completely secure. There’s a second, marginally less-secure version for site developers.
So, if you like shaping web sites to your personalized, and customized layouts, then this extension’s for you. But I’d advise first reading the caveats contained in the developer’s blog before you actually install the extension.
Windows Genuine Validation tool too was flawed. And a bit of ingenious JavaScripting was all it took to engineer a validation work around. Microsoft has fixed the bug. The tool now generates a code that has to be pasted into the web page dialog before you are granted access. But proving where there’s a will there’s a way the very fix has been hacked again! Except this time round there’s no guarantee that the hack will work. But you can still try before you die.
Its interesting to note how quick Microsoft was in patching the problem. Even as some critical Windows vulnerabilities remain unresolved since August 2003! When its the company’s reputation and bottom-line that affected they sure seem to deliver a solution real quick.
The bad news doesn’t end here. According to Sunbelt Software, the CoolWebSearch (CWS) spyware seems to be the tip of a very large identity theft ring! While evaluating a CWS exploit Sunbelt found user information was being captured and uploaded to a remote web host. Its not clear (to me) if the original CWS spyware has been upgraded or is the exploit limited to a hijacked version.
The exploit was detected by a Sunbelt researcher after his computer suddenly became a spam zombie then attempted to contact a remote server. The exploit payload includes a sophisticated key logger program that monitors all user activity. And captures internet traffic, web site user names and passwords. Along with chat account details and activity. As well as the contents of Windows protected storage store. That contains Internet Explorer’s auto complete data. The key logger can also transverse secure (SSL, HTTPS) web sites and capture bank and credit card information entered into Web (HTML) forms!
Sunbelt found that the exploit’s parent site had collected over 500 different computers private information over a 24 hour period. One company had over $380,000 in a compromised account. Sunbelt is working with the FBI and US Secret Service (who besides protecting US Presidents also investigate revenue-related crimes) to track everything back to the source. Which make it no time like the present to download, or run an installed, anti-spyware solution to check that you too don’t have CWS installed on your computer.
If you were wondering when I planned to preview Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1, don’t hold your breath. I try and avoid buggy software in my old age. But the folks at Neowin like living dangerously and have published quite a comprehensive preview.
You may also want to read Paul Thurott’s article calling for users to boycott Internet Explorer 7 when its launched. As the web community is full of people who shoot from the hip, Paul had to do a follow-up to clarify he didn’t imply a complete Internet Explorer boycott.
If you are a project manager. Or at the very least need a project management tool. You might want to checkout Niku Corporations OpenWorkbench. I haven’t really used it in earnest. But from what I’ve see its as good, if not better than Microsoft Project. This open-source project requires that you register before downloading.
A great, and free, non-dot net RSS aggregator is Curio Studio’s GreatNews. This attempts to present syndicated content is a more familiar newspaper style layout than like a collection of separated messages. Overall, what I like about this software besides the fact that it doesn’t need the dot net Framework installed is its speed. It doesn’t choke even with really large subscription lists (my raw OPML file is 3 MB). You can also add your own labels to items. You can also import subscribed feeds (OPML format). Greatnews is quite self-contained and you can view feeds within the software.
There’s also RSS Reader, a new open-source feed aggregator developed in .Net (dot net). This combines a feed aggregator with a blogging tool compatible with WordPress, B2Evolution, .Text and Community Server. The application can store feeds inside Outlook (if installed). Or you can use the default store instead. Actually the Outlook integration goes beyond reading syndicated content. You can setup an Outlook folder linked to a specific web log. Then content dropped into this marked folder is automatically posted to the blog. I see this as a productivity maximizer for corporate blogs. But what I don’t like about this software is how tries to insinuate itself into Windows without requesting user permission. It also polls the floppy drive at startup while attempting to run a batch file. Luckily for me, my Microsoft AntiSpyware trapped the application and asked me what to do next. And RSS Feeder open feeds in the default browser which can spawn multiple browser windows.
And finally, there’s a new AudioManage 1.20a version available. This has done away with the UPX-compression. And overall is sleek and more streamlined. It also no longer chokes on my Windows 2000 home computer. Which has such a fragile registry hive that application that don’t work on it usually have coding errors! I will give you more on this app after I use it in some detail.
That’s it for this week. Stay safe until the next time.
Google Earth needs a 128 kbps or better connection. But I was able to run it using my 115 kbps CDMA wireless connection too. The interface is very easy to use. Just type in the first search layer (e.g. India). Or pan-scan the globe to find your country of choice. Then zoom in slowly using the mouse wheel. Click and grab shifts map focus. You can also change viewing angles to look at 3-dimensional (3D) buildings. The bottom of the screen window displays the map coordinates. I was even able to locate my parents house complete with the 4 large trees that surround it! I then zipped off to Chandigarh and the Himalayan foot hills. Unfortunately the day the image was captured there was low cloud cover. It was hard to view ground features through all those white blobs. 
