The Day Today

If you need to share large files between computers with an Internet connection there’s a better solution than e-mailing it, and a cheaper solution than sorting out web hosting. You can use a service like divShare.

divShare offer unlimited storage totally free and make their money by offering the option to brand your media files when they’re viewed directly from their service. They claim that it takes just 15 seconds to sign up, which I decided to test - it took me closer to 10 seconds! They have a very clean interface and I’m certain I’ll be using them to share photos from my upcoming trips!

I like to do lists, but haven’t found one I want to use online. I think it may be because I like my lists to be visible, and unless it’s on my desktop I think I’ll miss it. It’s also important not to overload yourself with too many tasks that they become overwhelming. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from the Agile methodology, it’s that short - achievable - tasks queued up for a release can be very effective.

When thinking about task lists recently, I decided to look for something I could ’stick’ to my desktop as a reminder that I had something to do. I don’t know about you, but I like my desktop to be clean (I have 10 icons and that’s already too many) so something that messes up my desktop would be something I’d want to clean up and therefore I’d get my tasks complete!

I’m sure I’ve heard of Stickies for Windows before, but it basically allows you to drop virtual post-it notes onto your desktop - much like the Mac OS application. Admittedly there are a few features I’d like to see (like a syncronisation that doesn’t require Amazon storage, or preset alternative colours for categorising notes) but these would probably spoil the simplicity of the application.

It appears that Google can be used to find Citrix gateways, which are often unsecured - allowing a hacker to get a command prompt on the servers. This article explains how, and includes a video showing how to get a command prompt from the calculator application - it’s scarily easy…

Update: The video has been removed by YouTube.

One of the biggest changes in my technology world of 2007 has been the ditching of offline apps for online apps. It’s a process that’s taken place over a few years, but the serious gains are now starting to be realized. Using online applications isn’t a new idea technologically, but if you take the percentage of all net users using these apps in a dedicated fashion, the figures look pretty anaemic.

First, the bookmarks..

For me it all started with the bookmarking service del.icio.us, over two years ago. Typical bookmarking systems are next to useless over a certain number as they’re hard to search and categorize. With del.icio.us came tagging, and now I have just over 4200 bookmarks I can recall from any machine in the world (including those that I can’t change in any way).

Initially I was attracted to del.icio.us not because it was an online app, but merely because it offered something no offline app did at the time. It allowed me to find things based on vague memories. Let’s say I want to find, say, a page I found “funny” a few months ago, but I can’t remember exactly what it was about. I just go to http://del.icio.us/coop/funny or http://del.icio.us/coop/humor and look through a few pages. Nice! Over the months, however, the advantages of having an online app came through.. I could keep up to date with entire topic areas using the pages that show the most popular bookmarks for certain tags.. for example, http://del.icio.us/popular/ruby or, heck, http://del.icio.us/popular/WHATEVERYOULIKE! .. so I was won over.

And then came mail..

I’d had a Gmail account since the first month it was launched, but I never used it for anything serious, sticking instead to a myriad of POP3 accounts and my trusty desktop e-mail client. This system worked well and meant I could feel smug against all those struggling with weird e-mail addresses like supermegaman1726@hotmail.com or frhejfds777@lamewebmail.co.uk. Relying on webmail felt wrong to me, since my mail would be in someone else’s hands, so to speak.

The annoying side of my system, however, was that when I moved machines, I had almost no access to my mail! If I went away on business and took my notebook, I’d have to struggle through the webmail accounts associated with my POP3 accounts, and then lose track of what I’d replied to and what I hadn’t! The whole thing sucked, so I set up all my mail accounts to forward to a new Gmail account and set up a bunch of rules on Gmail to filter all my various e-mail addresses into separate folders there. Problem solved! I can now access mail everywhere, respond everywhere, and keep track of what I’ve responded to. Works a treat.. definitely one of the biggest improvements I’ve made to my technological life.

A side benefit of the forwarding approach is that I can still run my mail client at home from time to time to keep an archive of my mails.. my ass is covered!

Then Instant Messaging..

I won’t go into detail here, because I very rarely use instant messaging, but Meebo.com is an online environment for IMing and it works a treat. It deals with all of the major networks within a single Web app. Why bother installing anything?

Then my calendar..

I was a pretty big fan of iCal, the Mac OS X calendar app. I’m no scheduler, but I like to put things I need to do by a certain time into a calendar, or particularly important events. It helps to have a single place to look to know what you need to do that day. So.. I used iCal, and it did the trick for a few years.

With the move to Gmail, however, I quickly saw reasons to move my calendar too. I couldn’t access my iCal calendar while on the road, couldn’t get it on my phone, couldn’t access it even on a different machine in the same house. iCal lets you export and “share” calendars but it’s a crufty solution. Google’s calendar also has the advantage of being able to SMS you before each event!

And now documents..

When I first saw “online word processing” Web apps, I didn’t really get it. Once I became a Gmail convert, however, it all clicked into place. Documents shared across machines, anywhere in the world, and I can write my holiday’s itinerary online, get others to collaborate on it, and then even access while on the road.

There are even more apps I use and a lot of apps I’ll probably end up using, but this is just a basic introduction. Whether the advantages work out for you or not, there’s a whole ton of reasons to move over to using Web apps. I get to treat my machines more as identical clients that access network services, rather than “my computer”. If one of my machines dies, it doesn’t take much to get up and running again, whether on another Mac, under Linux, or even a Windows machine.

I’ve been having an issue with Mozilla Firefox for some time now, where I can’t start it multiple times. Opening a new window is fine, but attempting to launch from a shortcut results in the error “Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.” I determined some time ago that this was related to my profile and that sorting out a fresh one would resolve the issue (copying the profile failed to do this).

So it is until now that I have delayed the deletion of my profile and creation of a new one, mainly because it didn’t bother me too much. The thing that finally pushed me to do this is that after a recent cleanup of my machine, Firefox has become unstable. I have now uninstalled/reinstalled and am ready to get this profile mess sorted. Removing the profile will of course cause me to lose any information stored, including passwords (I keep these in my head anyway so not a problem), bookmarks, and extensions.

I have the bookmarks covered using Google Browser Sync (which can also syncronise cookies, passwords, history, and open tabs) but there are a few other extensions that I find essential and will need reinstalling in the new profile. I did look at using FEBE to backup all extensions so I can just restore them in the new profile, but I prefer to use moments like this to perform a cleanup - so I’ll be getting rid of almost as many extensions that I seldom use.

Below I have listed my essential extensions, along with a description and a link to the download location. This is really so I can refer to this list to perform the reinstallation, and is in a way my backup of extensions.

1. ColorZilla - Adds a eyedropper tool to the status bar, allowing you to get the hex value of any colour displayed on a page. A very useful tool for website designers.
2. Extended Statusbar - This adds useful information to the status bar such as image count, page size, and how long the page took to load.
3. Faviconize Tab - I don’t use this much (because I forget I have it) but it’s great. You can double click any tab and it will reduce to only display the site’s favicon - a great space saver if you use lots of tabs.
4. Firebug - XHTML/CSS/Javascript debugging tool. Absolutely essential!
5. Google Browser Sync - Essential for syncronising my bookmarks between machines. If only the bookmarks appeared on Google Bookmarks so I could access them online (apparently this is on the todo list).
6. Google Notebook - A handy place to keep notes such as flight numbers, and other reference codes. I often forget I have it though, and most of these details get e-mailed to me anyway.
7. Greasemonkey - This allows user scripts to run any website, which can be very handy. I used to have a script that added RSS feeds to Google Mail but I stopped using it, now I only have Facebook Autopoke (that’s right - I only poke because it’s automatic - now you feel less special?)
8. IETab - Great for testing sites in Internet Explorer without loading it up, this allows you to change the rendering engine for any tab to IE. It’s also handy for sites that wont work in Firefox such as Outlook Web Access, or my work’s Intranet - you can configure sites to load using IETab by default.
9. LiveHTTPHeaders - Shows what conversations happen between Firefox and the visited site(s). This can be handy for debugging problems or investigating site security.
10. StumbleUpon - Essential for those moments where you think you’ve read the entire Internet already. Hit the Stumble button (after configuring your preferences) and you’ll get a seemingly random site displayed. Once you’re bored of that site, rate it and hit the button again!
11. SwitchProxy - I use this all the time to avoid the proxy server at work, basically it routes all your traffic through another server. This can be very handy for security purposes.
12. User Agent Switcher - This lets you tell Firefox to masquerade as another user agent. Sometimes it’s useful to pretend to be Googlebot for example, and see the web as Google see it.
13. Web Developer - Lets you deconstruct and diagnose problems within a website. This one is essential if you consider yourself a web developer.

Of course this list wouldn’t be complete without including my own Firefox extension! It’s called the iCONSULT Search Assistant and unfortunately it’s not publically available, but even if it was it probably wouldn’t be on many people’s essential list! It basically adds a context menu item to perform a lookup against Elsevier’s Clinical Decision Support tool.

For details on managing Firefox profiles see Firefox Help: How To Manage Profiles.

Update: Everything reinstalled and I still have the same Firefox error. D’oh! Any suggestions would be cool, but I’m not that worried as I wont have this machine for much longer, and this was a good excercise.

This is the kind of software that can save lives. Well maybe not lives, but it can certainly save a lot of stress when you can’t remember your password to that FTP site, which is saved but now you need to use it on a new machine or provide it to someone else. Basically Snadboy’s Revelation (which also happens to have the best name for an app that I’ve seen this year!) reveals those passwords that are obfiscated by using something like asterisks - depending on the operating system. This is defiantely the kind of software we’ve all looked for in the past but find too numerous shareware applications that we get scared off by the thought of most of them loading our machines with nasty malware. I’ve checked this one out and it appears to be one of the good ones.

Of course there are also evil reasons to want to see passwords that are otherwise hidden, but I trust you.

I’ve used Windows Vista twice now, for less than 10 minutes on each occaision and I wasn’t very impressed. I’m not saying that I didn’t like it - it looks kinda cool - but it didn’t WOW me like Microsoft claimed it would. For this reason I still recommend that people use Windows XP where possible, and will shortly be purchasing a laptop for a friend with XP preinstalled rather than Vista. The time will come when it’s better to go with Vista but I don’t think this will happen until a service pack is released, and Microsoft start making it difficult to go with XP.

This article on PCWorld.com reveals that Microsoft have decided to extend how long PCs can be sold with Windows XP from January 2008 - by five months - to June. This is clearly their reaction to an unexpectedly slow sales of the new OS, and I’d be interested to see if a Vista service pack is scheduled for around April-May 2008.

I can only assume there are others that think like me and would only get Vista if a machine came with it, and would even then consider going for XP if it was an option. I’ve even heard of a few cases where hard drive failures in machines have a perceived advantage of giving the user an opportunity to downgrade back to XP!

I couldn’t post about Microsoft’s failings with Windows without mentioning that Apple are still planning on releasing the next version of their OS this month, which is highly anticipated and unlikely to suffer the same reluctance to upgrade.

I’m a user and a fan of Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The argument that it’s more secure than IE is not one I use any more, as I have also been impressed with Microsoft’s latest browser. I think it comes down to personal preference, and I find the extensions capability of Firefox reason enough to stick with it. One thing that I would change in Firefox in an instant, however, is to fix the memory leak some call a ‘feature’. This is caused by the browser retaining a cache of viewed pages in the system’s memory for speedy recovery. Admittedly this isn’t a bad idea, but as it does this for each tab (and I use a lot of tabs) my current instance of the browser is almost at 500MB of memory usage, which means that a feature that has a minimal chance of actually being useful is actually having an affect on the free resources my machine has.

I’ve no doubt that if this memory is required by an application that Firefox releases it, but I find this has an affect on the browser itself and ultimately causes me to restart the application in order to return to a suitable response time.

According to several sources, you can fix this by restricting the amount of memory Firefox can use, but this has mixed results (some saying this is just a recommended restriction to the application). You can also turn off the caching, but this will almost certainly have an affect on your browsing experience - I’m guessing I use the back button more often than I realise. Another method is to enable a setting in the browser to flush memory whenever the application is minimized. This is the one I have now implemented and hopefully will start seeing a difference.

I have included instructions on implementing each solution below. I’d be interested to hear if anyone has much success. I’m also hopeful that Firefox 3 (due out soon) will address this long-standing issue.

Restrict memory allocation:

1. In the address bar type about:config and press return.
2. Right click on any value in the list and click New > Integer.
3. Type browser.cache.memory.capacity for the preference name and click OK.
4. Set the desired value in bytes that you want Firefox to use (for example 32768 bytes is equal to 32 megabytes).
5. You will need to restart Firefox for the changes to take affect.

Disable caching:

1. In the address bar type about:config and press return.
2. Find the preference named browser.cache.memory.enable, right click it and select Toggle.
3. The value should change to false.
4. You will need to restart Firefox for the changes to take affect.

Trim memory usage on minimize:

1. In the address bar type about:config and press return.
2. Right click on any value in the list and click New > Boolean.
3. Type config.trim_on_minimize for the preference name and click OK.
4. Select the value to true.
5. You will need to restart Firefox for the changes to take affect.

Yesterday I mentioned that I backup my essential files remotely but I didn’t explain how I do this. A few months ago I had backups on my mind as my parents had recently bought an external hard drive for this very purpose, and I was explaining that although this was a great idea they ideally needed to keep it offsite or have two drives and rotate them. Around this time I picked up a PC magazine and was flicking through it and discovered an article on remote backups, which reviewed several solutions.

My lasting impression was that Mozy Online Backup was definately worth checking out. Their solution allows you to backup 2GB of your data for free as a sort of trial (2GB doesn’t get you far, but probably covers your really essential documents). The main benefits of Mozy in my mind are that the backup is remote, secure, and automatic. I was so impressed with the service that I subscribed for unlimited storage for just $5 a month - that’s around £2.50 or 8p per day! Considering that a portable external hard drive that would cover the capacity of my internal drives (which I’m fast approaching) would cost around £105, it would take around 3 and a half years before the monthly payments exceed the cost of the drive!

On top of that, having an external drive would mean managing my own backups (the automatic backup feature in Mozy is excellent), and also worrying about keeping the drive offsite in case of fire or theft. The initial backup of my files took several days as my upload speed isn’t great, but once this is done Mozy just uploads new or updated files, which takes hardly any time and is managed silently in the background.

Mozy only allows backups for one machine, so when I get my MacBook I’ll probably upgrade my subscription but I’ve been so pleased with the service that I wont be put off by paying £5 a month for complete peace of mind. This doesn’t mean I wont be buying some sort of portable external drive as they’re really handy, but I can now take my time looking for one and buying when the time is right.

I’ve been writing about Apple technology quite a bit recently, and I think one of the reasons for this is that I will soon be buying my first Mac (probably in the shape of a MacBook Pro). When I say soon, I mean within the next 6 months - I’m waiting for the new version of OS to be released and also waiting until I can afford the thing!

I’ve been reading various weblogs for some time and making a note of any ‘essential’ applications for Mac, but it’ll take hours to read through them all again so I was thrilled when I saw that Freelance Switch has gathered 35 applications that they feel make the Mac what it is.

Most of the applications they mention focus on creative writing, but there are a few in there that would be essential for any profession, and more than a few that interest me.

When it comes to improving on OS features I often prefer to experience the OS as it comes (especially as Mac OS is still so new to me) before I look to improve it. Where Microsoft is concerned I ultimately return everything to defaults as all the ‘improvements’ ending up either bothering me or slowing down the machine.