Software – Page 8 – Mostly Harmless

December 5, 2009

Now trying OpenDNS SmartCache

If you are an IT/Network professional with UNIX/Linux/BSD experience and you have a network at home, you really can’t resist playing around. It’s the best way to learn and causing outages at home will only irritate your family.

I’ve been using Google Public DNS for a day or two and it’s fast and responsive. Even though a simple test shows that Google’s Public DNS on a per query basis is slower, the end user experience has been faster (at least for me). But OpenDNS is more feature rich and I’d like to see if I can get a good experience using it.

I revisited my OpenDNS account dashboard and found out that they now offer an option called SmartCache, which I have enabled. I also downloaded the OpenDNS Updater onto my kitchen notebook. That notebook is on all the time and it make’s sense to run it there. FIOS has already once given me a new IP address and I want my OpenDNS settings to follow my network at home.

OpenDNS’s blog has a good explanation for SmartCache here and more info here. It’s a useful feature and you have to applaud them for offering it to their free account users.

End user experience is a very subjective thing so I’ll see if OpenDNS has the same feel or better as Google Public DNS. Like most folks, I just want web browsing to work and be fast.

November 20, 2009

Playing with WordPress 2.9 beta

I svn’ed the latest 2.9 beta on my blog, so far so good. It’s visually the same as 2.8 so I think user acceptance will be good.

November 12, 2009

Get your red hot WordPress 2.8.6

WordPress 2.8.6 is out and it’s a security release so update now.

I’m expecting the usual complaints on the support forum but so far it’s been pretty sedate. I’ve been using WordPress since version 1.5.2 and I’ve never had a bad upgrade. Of course, I have a good idea what I’m doing and have never used the automated upgrade process, so your mileage may vary.

As is usual, using SVN only took me a few minutes to upgrade 6 blogs on 3 different machines.

November 1, 2009

Downloading Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix

I’m downloading Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix right now for installing on my Acer Aspire One. Normally I would BitTorrent it but with FIOS it’s coming down directly at +2.1 MB/sec.

October 29, 2009

Ubuntu 9.10 is released

Ubuntu 9.10 is out, get it at http://www.ubuntu.com/. I’m planning on checking out UNR this weekend.

October 12, 2009

Rebuilt the Acer Aspire 1

I rebuilt my Acer Aspire 1 with the factory provided DVDs. Mainly, I did this because I want to use the soon to be released Ubuntu 9.10 UNR. By installing and using the netbook’s version of XP I can get a good idea of a best case scenario as my baseline. With my newly purchased USB DVD drive I got to work.

Removing Ubuntu was a simple matter of logging into the netbook, becoming root, and then running fdisk. I deleted the existing partition and began installing XP. Which refused to boot because I did not delete grub properly.

I ended up booting fron another XP install CD. I selected recovery and ran fixmbr. I spent the whole afternoon getting updates from Microsoft. Once I was up to date I deleted McAfee and installed AVG Free.

The netbook is behaving remarkably fast. On a lark I installed FlashFire but haven’t looked to see if that’s what’s causing the netbook to be noticeably faster. Even Youtube is displaying quickly. If this continues to work so reliably then maybe I’ll leave XP on this machine.

October 4, 2009

Photoshop Elements 8 Upgrade

Note to self: next time you install PSE 8 make sure you turn off the Auto-Analyzer. The PSE 8 Organizer tried to analyze 23,000 old photos. That did really bad things to my CPU usage.

October 1, 2009

I’m not a web designer but I do like playing around

I’m playing with Typekit at the moment and having font fun. As I write this I am using Legendum by Roger van Dalen amd Droid Serif by Google Android. Today I received an e-mail from Typekit with my invitation (I applied a couple of weeks ago). I created my account, selected my fonts, and inserted two lines into my blog’s header.

The idea works like this: instead of just using the built in fonts specified in your style sheet, you can select and implement the font you want from Typekit’s offering. This way, the fonts that are displayed match what you want versus what the browser thinks. It works with all current versions of web browsers such as Firefox 3.5.x and Internet Explorer 8. It does not work with Internet Explorer 6, but who cares?

I signed up for the free trial so I’m limited to 2 fonts. Once you select a font you can apply it to the CSS tags that you want. I did not have to change my style.css in anyway, just get the CSS tags right. You can see the badge in the lower right hand corner and if you click it you’ll get to see what’s running font-wise on this page.

Very cool and I’ll keep poking at this.

September 13, 2009

F.E.A.R.2: Reborn (DLC)

fear-2-reborn I wanted to get a new FPS so I installed F.E.A.R.2 via Steam and bought F.E.A.R.2: Reborn (DLC) (also via Steam).

So far it’s plain fun mayhem. This expansion is supposed to be short (plays in less than 2 hours) but maybe I’ll re-play F.E.A.R.2 once I’m done.

September 12, 2009

Thank you Adobe, but no thanks

Update: Look before you click. The McAfee component is optional and you are given the chance to not install it on the Abobe web page.

-Original posting below.-

So I downloaded the updated Firefox 3.5.3 and when it came up it said “Hey, your Flash player is outdated. Click here to get an upgrade”. You can read about this feature here.

I keep my software up to date so this was news to me. But what the heck, Mozilla’s rep is good and Adobe Flash and Acrobat are popular attack vectors. Why not upgrade? So I ran Adobe’s download manager extension in Firefox which promptly installed the updated Flash and McAfee System scanner.

I was not asked if I wanted the McAfee software, it installed it without my permission.

I have no problem with being provided the option, but seriously, installing third party software without getting explicit approval from the end user is just plain stupid.

Keeping up your software is a responsible thing to do especially if you want to keep the use of your PC to yourself. Why rent out your PC to a zombie army? But installing software without your permission is a tactic of the “bad guys”.

I don’t care if it’s an anti-virus company or not, don’t put software on my PC without my permission. I promptly went to my control panel and removed the McAfee software. I already have an up to date anti-virus product on my PC and don’t need unwanted code.

Category: Software (page 8 of 22)

Now trying OpenDNS SmartCache

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Playing with WordPress 2.9 beta

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Get your red hot WordPress 2.8.6

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Downloading Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix

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Ubuntu 9.10 is released

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Rebuilt the Acer Aspire 1

Like this:

Photoshop Elements 8 Upgrade

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I’m not a web designer but I do like playing around

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F.E.A.R.2: Reborn (DLC)

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Thank you Adobe, but no thanks

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Jan Dembowski