Need a Backup

I've been having a number of hard-resets on my Sony handheld recently. Fortunately I haven't lost any important data, as I've been backing up my whole handheld every couple of days with the MSBackup software which came with the Clie, as well as copying files to the Memory Stick. So far I've been lucky, but sooner or later I'll forget to do a backup. Backups done with MSBackup have to be manually started, so a Backup Utility with scheduling capabilities would be ideal.

The first one I tried (or second, if you count FlyBackup, which really wasn't a contender), was BackupMan. This simple $10 software does scheduled backups, but lacks advanced options like selecting files to exclude, compression and encryption. Despite that, it works well.

Backup doesn't fly

While I was looking on FlyZip's website yesterday I came across FlyBackup.
Aha, backup utility with compression and encryption for $10. I really need a backup program which has scheduling capabilities, let me try it.
The first backup didn't complete, possibly because TealLock interrupted it, and a second backup ran for 2 minutes alternating between displaying either 17 minutes or 14 minutes to go. (It DOES compress though!)

Several minutes later, with 9 minutes to go the stupid program ran out of space on the card (there was only 6MB left on the SD Card). Why couldn't it have told me beforehand?
Maybe the simpler BackupMan will be better.

Fly "Zip"

The name sounded intriguing, so I'm trying FlyZip on my handheld. This little Palm Utility "Zips" programs in memory to save RAM. It can also "Zip" programs to a Memory Card & create a shortcut to run the "zipped" program, like PowerRun. I use Zip in quotes because the format is not compatible with programs like WinZip. For that you need a program like Resco Explorer or LightNzip.

FlyZip has some really cool animation, the first when it starts up and the second when it "Zips" or "Unzips" an application:



If I didn't already have JackFlash and Resco Explorer I would have serious considered buying this utility.

Treo 650 smartphone is here!

Well, officially anyway.

The differences between the Treo 650 and the Treo 600 are:

Bluetooth wireless technology.

320x320 pixel screen

Built-in MP3 player.

Removable battery.

Nonvolatile memory (Like the Tungsten T5).

Camera now captures video too.

Big download

Finally managed to download Knoppix Linux, which is a bootable Linux. I had tried a few months back, but given up. After the second FTP site said it would take 22 hours I almost gave up again. I decided to try Bit Torrent, which is a P2P download method (see Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide) requiring Bit Torrent software on the local machine. I started the download and left it to run all night. It took just under 7 hours for the 700MB ISO Image, but it worked. One advantage of broadband is not having to worry about the line dropping, although I've downloaded a 700MB ISO Image in less than 20 minutes. I had actually downloaded 5 CD images of varying sizes in a couple of hours earlier the same day.

Oh, and Knoppix Linux - it looks cool!

First Sony, now Sharp, this sucks!

FresnoBee.com: Technology: Sharp to stop selling PDA in U.S.

The Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 was on my shortlist of PDAs when I was hunting for a PDA last year. Although it's Linux based, it can run the Palm OS Emulator, and has a slide out keyboard.

Channel..I mean Web..surfing

I've discovered a new way to surf the Web.
StumbleUpon is a downloadable toolbar which works with most (Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox) Browsers and on a number of Operating Systems. Basically, once you've downloaded and installed the toolbar, you choose topics which you are interested in (the more the better). Then you just click the "Stumble" button on your browser to begin channel surfing - give a "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" to the websites you like or dislike, and surf on. Really great fun.

Gimme space

What's happened to the extra space promised by Hotmail?
In June there were reports all around like this one in USA Today in June: Hotmail and Yahoo to offer more email storage space and another at CNET Hotmail to offer 250MB of free storage

Yahoo increased its space within days of the announcement. So did a number of other free web-based email providers like Myway.com.

So Microsoft, where's the increase in Hotmail space?

YAIEB!

Yikes!, Another Internet Explorer Bug

[Secunia - Advisories - Microsoft Internet Explorer Disclosure of Sensitive XML Information]

What, no Tungsten T4?

The new Palm Tungsten T5 PDA is here. With 256MB of flash memory (215MB available, of which 160MB is an internal flash drive), 416MHz Intel XScale processor, stereo headphone jack, Bluetooth but no Wi-Fi, and NO slider!

What's in a name

I was curious about the multiple name changes for "the browser now called Firefox".

First, it was Phoenix.
Then, it was Mozilla Firebird.
Now it's Mozilla Firefox

According to Geek.com, the Mozilla Foundation had to change the name the first time because the name Phoenix was already trademarked. The second change has come in the wake of unhappy words from the Open Source Firebird relational database development project.

Mozilla's FAQ about the name Firefox

Found PrefBar

Well, I found a version of the Firefox extension "PrefBar" which works with Firefox 1.0 Preview version for download at www.extensionsmirror.nl

Browser catches fire

I finally tried the Preview version of the Mozilla Firefox browser.
I was impressed right from the word go. The first time I ran Firefox it detected which plugins were installed and retrieved updates for the compatible ones. I was really sorry there isn't a compatible version of PreBar out yet. It also asked where it should import bookmarks and settings from (as both IE and Mozilla were still on the machine). The browser is slick and fast, even on my old 500 MHz machine running Windows 98.

Over Amplified

I decided to try Amplify.com after reading a favorable review of it in PC Magazine. Amplify is supposed to help you capture and share parts of web pages which interest you.

I should have realized that wasn't for me when I saw that one of the requirements is Internet Explorer. Without asking, it installed itself in the startup group - a big no-no. It also had some major clashes with the GoogleBar.

Current status of Amplify.com: uninstalled.

Linux from my homeland

Here it is: Ubuntu Linux from South Africa. And a review on ExtremeTech.

Budget version of Windows

Russia gets budget version of Windows called Windows XP Starter Edition.

Bill and Steve are happy

Bill and Steve are happy at this news:
Reverse Migration: From Linux to Windows

SciTE!

With all my searching for a free text editor, I had never came across the SciTE editor. I guess that's good, because I may have been disappointed with SciTE as a mere text editor. I came across it packaged as an IDE in Scite4AutoIt3 with function lookups and other nice stuff for the freeware Windows scripting language AutoIt. Just to quickly plug AutoIt here - this is a powerful scripting language. I've used AutoIt scripts to configure Windows 98, 2000 and XP Test machines at work - automating repetitive tasks like setting Windows Explorer preferences or change the display settings. AutoIt is like DOS batch files on steroids.

Anyway, with the SciTE editor, which is based on Scintilla (yeah, I also was like "What?" at first), you have a really cool IDE for AutoIt. As well as keyword completion and syntax highlighting, there is also code folding, a feature I've only seen in Visual Studio .Net's IDE.

SciTE means Scintilla based Text Editor, according to SciTE for Windows Scripters.

And I thought Crimson Editor or JEdit were the ultimate in freeware text editors!

Slipstreaming

One of the tools on the Windows Ultimate Boot CD site was AutoStreamer.

To "slipstream" is to apply a service pack to an Operating System installation CD, so when the OS is re-installed it already has the Service Pack. The process can be done "manually", but AutoStreamer automates the process.

I used AutoStreamer to slipstream Windows XP (SP1) to Windows XP Service Pack 2. The program required the original Windows XP CD (or the Windows XP CD copied to a directory on the hard-drive), and a full download of XP Service Pack 2. It didn't take long, as I already had Windows XP (SP1) in a directory on the hard-drive. Soon I had Windows XP with Service Pack 2 in ISO format ready for burning to a CD.

Give Windows the boot

Here's a good idea - a bootable Windows XP CD - Windows Ultimate Boot CD has tools and utilities for creating one.
They make use of Bart Preinstalled Environment, which I've mentioned before.