Category: Software I use

Over the last month I have set up my home computer once and my work computer twice. It has help that I had a list of my the first few things I install, though I realized that list is missing a key component.

Mozilla Weave, is a Firefox extension that allows you to sync Bookmarks, Passwords,…(get list) between a secure central server and multiple copies of Firefox. This is create if you have more then one computer but also good if you have one and want to backup or migrate your Firefox settings.

Of course there are other ways to do this, XMarks, formerly none as Foxmarks syncs bookmarks, and MozBackup will back up you Firefox settings. Of course niether does everything Weave does, or will do in comming versions.

One feature Of weave that I was surprised to find was OpenID Authentication. When you are presented with a standard OpenID login Weave replaces it with a single button, giving you one click OpenID authentication. The service uses an OpenID server at Mozilla.com. It’s the first implementation of increased authentication intergration. Making it easier to log into the sites that you use.

Of curse its still in beta so it’s not for everyone, but development seems to have intensified over the last few months and we’re now up to version 0.60 and for me it’s felt stable since V0.40

I like to read, when I have a good book in front of me I can tune out the rest of the world for hours at a time. I find the best time to read is during long rides on the TTC. For years I would always have a book one me when I traveled. Of course books can be balky and if I don’t have a bag it could be problematic to carry around with me. That’s where E-Books and Mobipocket Reader comes in.

MobiPocket is a free E-Book reader for mobile devices. It’s been my reader of choice since I first used it on my Palm III. Though there have been improvements the basic software hasn’t changed. You have a library of the books on your device that you can select from. Simple and easy to use, and it supports a number of platforms. Windows PCs, Blackberries, Windows Mobile, Palm Os and more.

Of course the software is useless without books to read with it. The first books I read were public domain, things like John Carter of Mars, the works of Edgar Allen Poe and Heart of Darkness are a few that stick out in my memory. Of course there are only so many public domain books that you want to read, so once you read through them you need to find other sources.

When I started looking I ran into to a couple of major stumbling blocks, the price and DRM. Most publishers charge the same price for an eBook as a hard cover or Trade paperback. To me this seems like gouging. The production and distribution costs of an E-Book are small compared a printed book but we are charged the same amount. DRM or Digital Rights Management is used by publisher to control how you use there E-Book. The restrict how where you can read it. Which means that you could pay as much for an E-Book as a hardcover but only be able to read it on your computer or one of your mobile devices. And like DRMed music if the company ever shuts down the authentication servers (You can see a couple of examples here and here ) or cancels your account (read about it here ) you could loose any access to your books. Both these issues were faced by the music industry when music industry was first going online, but the faced the competition of illegally. E-Books are not as popular as music So though you can find illegal copies on line there isn’t the active Trade in them that will force the publishers to see that the DRM and Pricing are killing a new market for books before it has a chance to grow.

Of course there are some positive signs, Amazon’s Kindle is putting E-Books into the hands of more people and there prices for books almost seems reasonable. If only the Kindle was 1 or 2 hundred dollars cheap and available in Canada.

There is also Baen Books (http://baen.com/), a company that gets that E-Books have to be should affordable and DRM free. Not only do they sell there books for a great price ( $5 or $6 each) they also give away a ton of books. Both at there Free Library (http://baen.com/library/) and on CD’s bundled with some of there hardcover books. It was the ton of books available from Baen that got me hooked on E-Books.

Some other places to get E-Books online, I have not personally used any of these:

MobiPocket (http://www.mobipocket.com)

EReader (http://www.ereader.com/)

Fictionwise (http://www.fictionwise.com/)

Recently I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to manage my email. It was during this process that I got my first private beta copy of Postbox. At the time I was think of moving to either outlook or web based for my mail, so I didn’t give it a fair shake. I setup a few accounts to try it but that was about it. it wasn’t till I needed to find a file sent to me from a client that I started playing with the features that make Postbox shine. I was quickly hooked. So now lets look at what Postbox does.

Postbox is based on Mozilla Thunderbird, an open source mail client made by the same people who do Firefox. Thunderbird has been my email client of choice since it was in early beta. My biggest complaint has always been that it didn’t see enough attention. To be fair to Mozilla the spun Thunderbird development off into a new organization Mail Corp to help with this problem, unfortunately I’m still waiting to see an improvement. So now we have Postbox, with all the features of Thunderbird but with a dedicated team of developers, a great combination.

Here are some of the features that promoted the switch:

Tabbed interface: Messages and mailboxes can be opened in tabs, not just the main window of the application.  A feature that has been implemented in all the browsers but still lacking in most email clients. To be fair though, Eudora had this ability years ago.

Tags/Topics: Tagging is in Thunderbird, but it always seemed to be half-backed to me. Postbox brings it front and centre removing the need to use folders for storing your mail, if only it would share it’s tags with Gmail or between to installations of Postbox then they would be perfect.

Todo Message: Being able to mark your messages as TODO and have them appear at the top of your mail box, is a great way to prevent that important task from falling through the cracks.

Searching: Both the Global Search and Saved Searches are improved over thunderbirds, making it easier to use with multiple accounts.

Attachment, Image and Links View: So often when you are searching through your mail its not the message you are looking for it’s the attachment. Having a quick way to see all attachments in a mailbox is great. It’s quickly becoming one of the most used features for me.

New Message Side Panel

What’s missing

I would love to see support for extensions like Thunderbird has. I think opening it up for third party developers could add some interesting features.

Though the To-do feature is innovative and a great way to highlight things you have to do, sometime things are date sensitive. Either they need to be done by a certain day or they don’t matter until a certain date. This is why Postbox needs a Calendar.

For me the biggest missing piece is working with Multiple accounts on different computers. I need to be able to check my mail form 2 or 3 different computers and I Would like it if they could all recognize the same Topics. The information is stored in the IMAP mailbox, its just hard to keep them synced between Postbox installs.

Over all Postbox is a great email client. There are some rough edges, after all its still beta. It will be interesting to see how it develops. Most importantly what revenue model they use to support it’s development.

With the release of Windows 7 RC 1 a couple weeks ago my desire to update my home desktop has grown. I have be considering this upgrade since the beta was released to the public in January but have been waiting till I can upgrade some of my hardware, specifically my Hard-drive and Ram. I plan on doing a clean install so I can start fresh with the new version of windows. With the release of the Release Candidit I am thinking I wont wait for the hardware upgrades. Of course that means I have to clean-up my existing drives so I have room, one reason getting a new drive is easier. So to put off cleaning up my drive I thought I would make a list of the top apps I will need on my refreshed system. I’ve managed to keep the number to 6, here they are:

1: Mozilla Firefox: Web Browser
The browser is your window to the Internet, with more and more applications moving to the web its important to choose the right browser. Microsoft has made great strides with Internet Explorer version 7 and 8, and Google Chrome is an intriguing new competitor in the browser space but Firefox is still my first choice. The only question is whether I should use the 3.5 beta or stick with 3.0? Of Course I don’t Just install Firefox I also install extensions. Download status bar, no script, xmarks/Weave, Firebug,

2: 7-Zip: Archive Manager
A great open-source program for managing Zip and other Compressed files.

3: Avast: Anti-Virus
It pains me that I need an Anti-Virus on my computer, of course the products from the market leaders Norton and McCaffrey hurt more. If I could justify the cost it I would go with Nod32, but since it’s for my home system and there are so many quality free Anti-Virus applications I’ve chosen one of them. Other I considered areAVG and Comodo Internet Security

4: Postbox: Email
My current email client of choice,though still in beta its based on Mozilla Thunderbird which gives it a stable base. It’s enhanced management of Attachments, Images and Contacts make it a more attractive then just Thunderbird. I’m working on a full review of Postbox form my Software I use series so stay tuned.

5: Digsby: Chat / Social Networks
Digsby is a multi-client chat program that supports social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s replaced Pidgin as my primary IM client. I like its clean interface and many features.

6: Live Mesh: Cloud
Live Mesh is another beta program, it’s for synchronizing files between computers, windows mobile phones and online storage. As an added bonus it allows remote desktop into system included in your Mesh. It also allow sharing with other people, though right now

These are just the tip of the iceberg, there are lots more programs that I will be installing on my system or using on the web. To see what other software I use check out my ongoing series of posts under the Software I use.