Security | Nerdlets

Don’t Pay for Software

Software, Webapps and Websites 3 Responses »

Oct 062008

I am still a little surprised that people are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars on computer software when there are often dozens of free alternatives available. Most of us use computers for pretty basic tasks: emailing friends, browsing the internet, editing photos, listening to music, writing letters, and maintaining blogs. All of these tasks—and many others—can be performed using excellent free software that is easily installable and maintainable.

Why you should not be afraid of “Free”

Consumer Reports recently ran an article instructing its readers to be suspicious of free software. There reasons were sound, but only apply to a certain kind of “free.” There is certainly a lot of “free” stuff on the internet that can cost you in the end, but there are also a lot of excellent resources as well; the trick is being able to tell the difference.

I think the other reason people are afraid of free software is that they assume it’s “second class.” Since it’s free, it can’t be very good. Again, this applies to some software, but not the kind I’m talking about. Think about it this way: who would you rather buy a car from? Do you pick the used car dealer, primarily interested in his bottom line? Or do you pick the enthusiastic hobbyist, the guy (or girl) who refurbishes old cars because he loves it? All things being equal, the second individual is probably the more trustworthy.

So what do you mean be “free”?

There are three kinds of free. The first type of free software is “free” software—notice the quotation marks. This includes malware (software that pretends to be useful, but actually damages your computer), shareware (software that pretends to be free at first, but then cuts you off after a certain amount of time, or holds back on you until you pay its premium), and crapware (software that really is free, but sucks). Of these, shareware is the only one worth talking about, and even here you should be careful. While I don’t particularly care for the shareware model, there are some useful programs in this group.

The second kind of free software is free in the sense of “free beer.” Many programmers and organizations develop software for their own personal use, and while they want to maintain absolute control over their creation, they nevertheless offer it to others out of kindness (or self-promotion, or for some other non-monetary motivation). So this includes all software that is “closed” (the programmer does not release the source code) but does not require payment.

The third kind of free software is free in the sense of “free speech.” Free-speech software is (almost) always also free-beer software. The difference here is that in addition to being free to use, those who produce the software also publish the “source,” the internal nuts-and-bolts that determines how the software functions. This is useful for other programmers—anyone can improve or add functionality to the software, without having to ask permission or pay a fee. Firefox is a good example here; it is free to use and also free to modify, which means there are plugins that can do almost anything right in the comfort of your browser. This is the best kind of free because, in addition to keeping money in your wallet, you are not ultimately dependent on any one individual or organization, and so your software is less likely to go out of date or be unusable.

The Recommendations: Free Software you Should Download or Bookmark

Over the course of the next few weeks I will be posting about free software to get you started, organized by function. All the software will be at the very least “free beer” software (unless otherwise noted). Most of it will also be “free speech” (open-source) software. I will also include a number of web-apps, which are generally “free beer” services.

The following is a list of the types of software I will discuss in the forthcoming posts. You can check back here, as I will edit this page when new posts are available, or you can always subscribe to the blog and get updated automatically!

Planning/Productivity
Office
Music, Movies, and Media
Internet
Social
Utilities
Photos
Security.
Backup

Dropbox: Part Sync, Part Backup, All Good

Software, Webapps and Websites 5 Responses »

Sep 112008

Backup is important. You never know when your hard drive will give out (and it will, someday), or when some killer virus is going to wipe your data, or when you are going to be a bonehead and accidentally delete that all-important file.

Backup is important, but an online backup offers further advantages. It can be slow, to be sure, but it protects you in ways that other backups can’t (fire, theft, etc.). It’s a good idea to have your vital information, your most valuable pictures, etc. in a safe and secure location. Services like Mozy Home provide a wonderful and feature-rich online backup solution (and its free). But it has its drawbacks (Windows only, slow, does not sync between computers).

Introducing Dropbox

There is a new site, however, that offers something more, and holds great promise for the futre. Check out the folks over at Dropbox. I have been playing around with their services for a while now and have been very impressed, and today marks the release of their services to the public (still beta, but public beta).

Backup

What is Dropbox? At the minimum it is an automatic online backup of your important data. Dropbox creates a folder on your hard drive. Whatever you put in this folder is automatically synced with your account online. In short, anything you put in the dropbox on your computer is automatically mirrored to a secure, private, and encrypted location online, accessible to you for anywhere in the world.

Sync

The beauty of dropbox is that it offers more than this.

In the first place, you can link multiple computers to the same account. So, for example, let’s say I have both my home and office computers linked to the same online Dropbox. If I add or change a file in the Dropbox on my home computer, it will be automatically uploaded to the online Dropbox, and in turn automatically downloaded by my work computer. All my data is in sync between multiple computers.

Furthermore, Dropbox knows when I modify files and acts accordingly. Let’s say a have an article that I am writing in my dropbox. Whenever I make even the slightest modification to the file on my home computer, that modification is immediately uploaded to the web. This is what is called “real-time” backup. The Dropbox software can sense anytime a file has changed, and mirrors that change online.

And here is the real cool bit: it also keeps a record of the modification in case you do something stupid. Say you accidentally deleted a couple of important paragraphs of your article and could not recover the original? Well, those changes will be reflected in your online dropbox, but the original will be there too, so in just a couple of clicks you can recover you old data. The Dropbox FAQ puts it well:

All your files are not only backed up but all prior versions are preserved. So if you delete something or even just save a bad change you can restore a file in a few clicks via the web interface.

The web interface (which looks a lot like Facebook) gives you a running commentary of all the changes that have been made, and is both good-looking and intuitive.

You can also mark certain folders as shared, allowing you to distribute files, as well as back them up. This could be particularly useful for photos, for example. Just mark your photo folder as shared, distribute the web address to your friends and family, and suddenly you have a private Flickr alternative.

More Advantages

Another important feature of Dropbox is that it only uploads the data that has changed, not entire files. Here, again, is the description provided by the FAQ:

Does Dropbox always upload/download the entire file any time a change is made? Nope, Dropbox tries its best to be smart about how much gets uploaded to our servers for the best possible performance. Before transfer, we compare the new file to the previous version and only send the (binary) diff.

What does this mean? It means that if you only changed one letter of that article, Dropbox only uploads that one letter to your online Dropbox. That saves an enormous amount of bandwidth, which means that once your original upload is complete, you can expect Dropbox to use minimal system resources. It won’t slow down your computer, and it won’t tie down you internet. Still worried? The Dropbox preferences dialog allows you to cap the speed at which it uploads data, allowing you to have it running at all times, even if you’re streaming movies from the internet or downloading email.

Security is also not an issue. All your data is password-protected and encrypted on Amazon’s excellent S3 storage servers.

Linux Users

There are a couple of added advantages available to you if you run a Linux-based operating system. These advantages are available because of the way Linux handles links. In short: Dropbox follows all sym-links. Don’t know what that means? Well, in Linux you can link to a file and the Operating System treats that link as if it was the file itself. Clicking on a link to a folder is as good as clicking on the folder itself. Long story short, you can place links to folders into your Desktop Dropbox and they will be backed-up and synced just like regular files. IThe rub is that if you run Linux you don’t have to change how your files are organized in order to use Dropbox, and that makes things a lot easier. Just drag links to your important folders and they will be automatically synced just like a regular folder.

How I Roll

I have two dropbox accounts, one is tied to my Laptop, on which I do all my work for school, write articles, prepare lessons for class, and, of course, hack at my dissertation. I now sleep peacefully at night knowing that all this, and especially my dissertation, is automatically backed-up in a secure location. If our house catches fire, I no longer have to run back for my laptop after heroically saving my wife, child, and dog. If my laptop gets stolen, drowned, shot at, etc. I still have access to all my data, and without any trouble whatsoever. As a cherry on top, I have my work desktop linked to this account, so I can access my files at school even without my laptop, and know everything will get synced up in the end.

I also have Dropbox installed on our home Desktop. I don’t really need syncing or anything here; really I just want our important files backuped-up online. So I have my backup software (Cobian 9) run a separate backup into my Dropbox folder. It filters out any large files (pictures, mp3s, etc) and sends the rest to the Dropbox, which is then in turn backed-up online—two simultaneous backups, one local, the other remote. Very nice.

Conclusions

Dropbox is really great Software/Webware. They provide clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac, and all are interoperable with the others (i.e. you can sync between different systems). There is currently a 2GB limit, but the storage and service is perfectly free. The company has promised that they will always offer this free storage, and that they will additionally allow you to upgrade to more storage (for a fee) in the future.

If you want more information, check out their FAQ here. For the latest news, their blog is here. You can also take a tour. And if you’re ready to download, go here.

Microsoft’s Latest Internet Explorer Shaping up to be Not Evil

Software 1 Response »

Aug 282008

MS recently released the Beta 2 of their latest iteration of Internet Explorer, and it’s looking pretty nice. It boasts substantially higher security and a wealth of new features (most of which are already available in other browsers).

The most important advance is IE8′s promised standards compatibility (enabled by default). This is huge. Why? Because the code the powers the internet is supposed to comply with certain standards in order to ensure that different web browsers are able to view the same content with comparable success. However, since IE has dominate the browser market (over 90% market share, until recently), Microsoft has somewhat ignored those standards. This means that web developers have to program for two: for IE, and for everyone else.

Several decades (and international lawsuits) later, we have IE8. And it looks good. Here is a balanced review from the folks at Ars Technica. They are generally enthusiastic, though have this interesting criticism:

More disappointing (although not IE8′s fault as such) is just how broken many of Microsoft’s own websites are when forced to use IE8[compatibility] mode…. It would be nice if Microsoft would take a lead here; it will be difficult to convince third parties to update their sites for IE8 if the company cannot itself be bothered to do the same.

Read the whole review.

Why Open Source?

Software 6 Responses »

May 222008

Many potential readers of this blog may be unfamiliar with the concept of “Open Source” software. There are a variety of possible definitions (depending on your preferred open source licensing schema), but what essentially qualifies software as being Open Source is the availability of its underlying source code for reading and editing. Why is that important? Because if you know how something is built you can always rebuild it, or build something similar that does the same job. Put it another way: ever feel like your information has been hijacked by software companies? What if you stopped using Microsoft Office, or you want to distribute your writing to someone who can’t afford pricey software? Sure there are workarounds, but those workarounds (1) require the use of open formats (that is, they presuppose the existence of Open Source software) and (2) require you to take extra steps to have unrestricted access to your own data.

Practical Advantages of Open Source

I have long preferred using software that supports open standards out of the box, such as the free and multi-platform openoffice.org, for practical reasons. In addition to the points mentioned above, open source code allows for easy third-party modification, which has resulted in the overwhelming success of software such as Mozilla’s Firefox and Thunderbird. Need a feature not included in the original? Just Google, click, restart, and you’re ready to go, and all free of charge.

Ethics and Open Source

But the issue may be more than practical. Westminster professor Vern Poythress has made an ethical case for the superiority of open computing. This is a very interesting read. There are, of course, certain qualifications that must be made, such as for security software and other areas were privacy is necessary for proper program performance, but Poythress’s suggestions provide an interesting perspective on the current debate. As a side note, Dr. Poythress puts the open source mentality into personal practice–he has released almost all his writings for free reading on his website.

Recent Moves by Microsoft

Microsoft has recently come to appreciate the advantages, if not the necessity, of opening up their format standards. Many (including myself) question the company’s commitment, but yesterday’s news is in their favor, as is their recent commitment to begin opening up their API. The fear that open code leads to less revenue has apparently been thoroughly debunked, and Microsoft may have some catching up to do with regards to their business model in order to compete.

At the very least, this saga is an interesting example of the application of Christian ethics. No area of life is neutral; all most submit to God’s Lordship.