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I’ve been using TrueCrypt drive encryption for some time for my external hard drives. Some days ago, I moved to BitLocker and I am quite happy with it. In this post I explain why. Please note that this comparison is about device-hosted encryption and not about system drive encryption.
The one thing I disliked most about TrueCrypt is that I couldn’t use my external drive for system image backups because the Windows 7 Backup and Restore applet no longer recognized this drive. You might say that this is not TrueCrypt’s fault. However, for me, it didn’t matter whose fault it was as I was just robbed from an important function of my external hard drive.
Hard to believe, but there are already more than 200 reviews of free admin tools on 4sysops. I want to thank all of you who have submitted their favorite tools and also those who rated the utilities.
It is difficult to find the appropriate tool in such a long list. Thus, some readers have suggested categorizing all tools. Actually, all tools had been tagged, but the problem was displaying them automatically according to their tags and ratings. I had to code a little to make this possible.
I originally didn’t tag the tools for this purpose, so some tools might not be categorized perfectly. If you spot a tool that would fit better in another group please notify me. Please note that a tool can be in multiple categories. I am also open to suggestions for new categories. And if you find tools that are no longer free or you spot any error, I would appreciate it if you leave me a message.
Just in case you feel the need for browser speed, you should have a look at this demo at the end of the page presented by Steven Sinofsky (President of the Windows Division) and Dean Hachamovitch (General Manager, Internet Explorer). You know, I don’t think that browser speed matters. Our PCs are brimming with CPU power and hardly make use of all their muscles to trim fat desktop apps. It is interesting to note that they don’t tell what kind of hardware they are using. My guess is that these are low-end machines because otherwise the differences wouldn’t be so obvious.
It is hard to imagine that slim real world web apps will ever need more power than desktop apps considering that a large portion of their code is running in the cloud. But who knows, maybe HTML5 will change the game. And yes, when it comes to games speed counts.
Submitted by Santhosh B – Blog: JiJi Technologies JiJi Self Extractor merges multiple files into a single self-extracting file. Compressed files can be converted as a self extracting file, which would be automatically decompressed on self extraction. It supports 15 different compression formats such as tar, 7z, zip, iso, arj, lzma, cab, z, rar, bz2, gz, jar, nsis, cpio, chm, bzip2 for auto decompression. This facility would be convenient for data transfers across internet, e-mails. This is also suitable for packaging software for deployment on client machines.
(10 votes, average: 4.10 out of 5)
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Virtual CloneDrive lives up to its name. This free tool allows you to mount ISO, IMG, CCD, DVD, UDF, and BIN files. The main difference from comparable tools is that the mounted drive is indistinguishable from a physical drive. You can test this by mounting an ISO image from a video DVD. If you right-click the drive letter, you will notice that Windows thinks that it deals with a real DVD drive because the context menu contains a “play” entry. All other freeware ISO mounting tools I’ve tried so far didn’t have this capability. This can be useful with applications that require a real DVD drive to work properly (for example, reference books).
(6 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5) Loading ... Interesting, the headline doesn’t mention that Firefox 3.6 was also hacked. Hard to believe. Capacity management is the top operational concern.At first, I wanted to run a poll about your Windows 7 adoption plans. But others have been faster. According to Computerworld’s survey a whopping 72% want to deploy Windows 7 and only 11% will stick with what they know. So the interesting question is not really if but when.
The fact that Windows 7 sells like hot cakes is certainly mostly because many skipped Vista and are now forced to update their IT environment. Many also didn’t replace their hardware for a while because of the bad economic situation. Since the prospects are looking better now, a lot of organizations will start investing again in new PCs and will take the chance to also upgrade to the latest Windows version. The media hype about Windows 7 is probably also a reason why Windows is again everybody’s darling.
Also read the Chinese position: Funny, first IE, now Firefox. Better stop using the internet at all.System Explorer is a powerful freeware utility that allows you to display and manage quite a few system components. There is a portable and an installable edition. I think, this tool belongs in every admin’s toolbox.
If you have a quick look at this tool’s Windows Explorer-like user interface, you will get a first impression of its capabilities. I will only discuss those features that seem to be most interesting to me.
(7 votes, average: 4.43 out of 5) Loading ... I just wish they would have linked to those “typical sites”.Most news sites reported yesterday that Microsoft announced Windows 7 SP1 (and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1). I didn’t see such an announcement. All I found was a post in Microsoft’s blog titled Talking About Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Well “talking” can hardly count as an announcement. Microsoft neither mentioned a release date nor really told us what new features Windows 7 SP1 will have. There will be an updated RDP client that supports RemoteFX, but I suppose this client will also be available for Vista (and perhaps for XP?).
So what is this talk all about? I attended a Microsoft online meeting for a discussion on SP1 for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, which was a little more revealing. It is interesting to note that no NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) was required as is usually the case when MVPs are invited to such meetings. Obviously, Microsoft wanted IT pros to spread the message. So what was the message? About half of the meeting was used for repeating the central part of this “announcement”: Don’t wait for SP1! Deploy Windows 7 now!
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