Keyloggers.  Spyware.  Data corruption.

Nowadays, these three words strike fear into hearts of users everywhere.  However, I will direct this article towards the organizations – such as schools, libraries, Internet cafes, as well as even corporations.  These behemoths serve a multitude of users daily – ranging from a couple hundred at a local library, to several thousand at a popular university.  The chances of having a careless user download rogue spyware or a bad egg installing keyloggers are insanely high – in fact, a rumour that I myself had caught flying around was that an organization I attended had been infected with keyloggers.  The rumour was dispelled when a friend of mine informed me that the organization used Deep Freeze – which then sparked the question: What is Deep Freeze?

Deep Freeze is an intelligent solution that offers absolute system integrity, according to its creator, Faronics.

Faronics Deep Freeze helps eliminate workstation damage and downtime by making computer configurations indestructible. Once Deep Freeze is installed on a workstation, any changes made to the computer—regardless of whether they are accidental or malicious—are never permanent. Deep Freeze provides immediate immunity from many of the problems that plague computers today—accidental system misconfiguration, malicious software activity, and incidental system degradation.

Deep Freeze ensures computers are absolutely bulletproof, even when users have full access to system software and settings. Users get to enjoy a pristine and unrestricted computing experience, while IT personnel are freed from tedious helpdesk requests.

Source: http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp

Basically, a computer (or workstation) is programmed to retain certain programs – for example, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Word 2007, but otherwise is reformatted everytime the system reboots.  Sure, that means that everyone’s documents stored in My Documents will be deleted besides the Sample Pictures.  But, that also means that if the system gets infected, it will also be removed as soon as the computer is rebooted.  This is what I would consider an ideal solution to most organizations’ problems with system integrity.

If you’re a home user reading this and contemplating getting Deep Freeze, I would think twice – although the chances of you accidentally installing spyware are still high, I think that it would be impractical for you to sacrifice your computing experience for paranoia.  Addressing keyloggers, no one would be silly enough to install a keylogger on themselves (besides, there would be no point to that).  However, for organizations that can’t afford to leak information, or organizations that treasure the security and trust of their users (such as libraries), I think this is a great big picture piece of software.  Heck, it gained my trust.

For more information and case studies, please visit Faronics’ web page for Deep Freeze:

http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp

The methods of receiving our software have been redefined in the last couple of years. From having to go out to the game store, progressing to just sitting patiently and having the games mailed to you, to finally having the game being downloaded for you within the hour. It’s amazing.

Yeah, yeah. Scoff at me for reviewing a content manager. My reasons for taking a look at this:

• It’s a huge integration of Stardock services.
• It’s the only alternative to Steam that I know of.
• It’s the first release of Stardock Impulse, which is the descendant of Stardock Central.

I’ve never used Stardock Central before, but I’ve used Steam as of late. For what it’s worth, the two are very similar in function, but very different in form.

Stardock Impulse combines different services, such as downloading/purchasing games, with community services such as chat and forums. It’s got an internal browser, which navigates around http://impulsedriven.net, which is how the forums and blogs are reached. Also, it’s a great aggregating list of everything that you’ve purchased, as well as a store/catalog for all games and software available through Impulse.

For the most part, Stardock Impulse runs fine. The download speeds are up to par, the installation is automatic, and everything can be ran and activated through Impulse. There are a few too many updates and restarts for my taste, and the loading time can be worked on – but asides from that, everything is smooth. It takes up 37mb of memory – kind of on the bloated side, especially for a content manager. By comparison, Steam uses 31mb of RAM, so I guess an extra 6mb isn’t too unreasonable (right?).

Content managers update – a lot. Impulse updates quite a bit, as does Steam I noticed. This does get a bit annoying at times, but I realize that it’s a whole part of the process – in fact, it should be seen as a positive thing. The purchased software updates very frequently as well, so there are fewer bugs and vulnerabilities. Don’t take it for granted!

The GUI really bugged me – it’s got twisted Vista-y/Web 2.0 glassy look, making it feel ever so bloated. I realize that the intention was to make it more integrated into Vista, while trying to retain its uniqueness, but I’m afraid Stardock didn’t exactly pull it off that well. It’s got no skins that we can change into, unlike Steam, which has four colour schemes (some of which look actually much better than the default olive-goose-poop scheme).

On the other hand, like steam, Impulse combines content with the community – there are a set of forums and even IM capabilities integrated into Impulse’s browser. It’s a very interesting setup. Not to mention you can set up your own blog (like I did on WordPress!).

I’m glad that Impulse doesn’t have those annoying promotional popups that Steam does, even though I’ll admit that they seem to be quite effective (the Steam popups had me considering purchasing some games).

However, I’m surprised that the support wasn’t more integrated into Impulse – sure, there are support forums, but I’d prefer if there was a live chat of some sort in Impulse.

Overall, it’s nothing special – nothing too different from the already-popular Steam. It’s great they’re up to par on each other, but for Impulse to take the cake, they’re going to have to explore directions where Steam hasn’t diversified in yet (such as the whole Support idea).

06/01/2008 UPDATE: Oops! As Brad Wardell has kindly stated, the version of Impulse that I am using is currently in beta. Sorry about that folks, I assumed that as the version number was past 1, it was ready for public release. My mistake! We’ll be taking a closer look at the June 17, 2008 revision.

Looking to take advantage of the new Windows Presentation Foundation?  Hate iTunes?  I’ve got the alternative media player just for you today – a relatively new entry to the market, but one already gaining steam.  It’s called ViewOn, and it specializes in integrating WPF into playing music, radio, and video.

In my brief experience of using it, it’s been pretty cool.  It’s somewhat unique, and doesn’t take as long as iTunes to start up – I haven’t tried syncing my iPod with it yet though.  The only pain I’ve been having with it is with the album art – darn, seems like it can’t read the album art iTunes or WMP11 applied to my .mp3 files!  This really does take away from the overall look and feel of the media player, making it feel somewhat last-gen.

I’ll probably write a full-blown review on it later on, but right now I’ve got quite a stack on my plate right now so I’m trying not to bite off more than I can chew, while at the same time provide material for you loyal readers.  Pardon the briefness – hey, if you’re tech-savvy, I suggest you try this yourself!  Just remember, you have to have .Net framework 3.5, which took a while to download and install on my laptop.  I wish you all the best.

Visit:

http://viewon.tv/

There once was a time of chaos, when darkness reigned and mist covered the vision of Herbert Lui’s glasses. He was forced to constantly be connected to the Internet in order to have a chance to write on his blog to communicate with his faithful readers. Friends, such a time is now over. Herbert Lui has discovered the joys of Windows Live Writer.

To be perfectly honest, these desktop blog-editors have been around for a long time. Desktop blog-editors have many pro’s – you don’t need a wireless connection to write text on your blog (it gets published once you establish a connection to the Internet), plus you can save a local copy of the text to your hard drive for backup purposes. One very popular one for both Mac and Windows would be Ecto, which is recommended by many including the Problogger Darren Rowse. However, I’m definitely aware of how programs look much better on Mac than on Windows when available for both, and upon reading comparisons of Ecto and Windows Live Writer, I decided to go with the latter. It is a decision I do not regret.

On a recent trip to Connecticut, I was fortunate enough to be staying in a hotel with Internet (also with my relatives that had wi-fi, a recent upgrade that they made which I was very grateful for). However, on one isolated occasion, I lost connection with the Internet for some unknown reason and my post was only half-complete when it last auto-saved. You could say I was pretty darn mad, because it was a waste of my time and energy. With a desktop blog-editor (such as Windows Live Writer), you need not worry about this.

Windows Live Writer is great! Although I’m not always the biggest Microsoft advocate, I have to say that Windows Live Writer is a great piece of software. It fits in with the Windows Live theme very well, and its taken into consideration many essential functions that I felt would’ve been easy to forget. It does all this while making it very easy to navigate, and as a first-time user I’ve already successfully written a post (and saved a local draft).

If you’re a hardcore blogger, I suggest you download a desktop blog-editor. I realize that there are more elite ones that you could pay for, but why pay the premium before knowing what you get with a free version? Try out Ecto or Windows Live Messenger (personally recommended by the great Herbert Lui) and I’m sure you won’t regret it. I even figured out how to post an image.