With the fast pace of computer and software development these days, it can be close to impossible to keep up with the latest versions of whatever applications you might be using. I use quite a few apps and most of them get behind in the updates because I don’t want to spend lots of time monitoring when a new version comes out. Some of them include built in update checking, and these are typically the only ones that stay up-to-date on my computer.
FileHippo has released a great looking Update Checker. I just ran it and within 9 seconds it came back with a report of 11 applications with outstanding updates, and links to each of the update downloads. One of them was Firefox which I keep pretty on top of with updates, but a new update come out in the last day or two, and FileHippo Update Checker was on to it.
As I am travelling at the moment, this is a hot topic for me. Portability of my applications, and how to do it using free software. There is a great site called PortableFreeware.com that provides links many many free and portable applications and operating systems.
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Wouldn’t it be nice…
I travel a fair bit. Right now I am in Germany. I take a laptop with me when I can. Yet relatively often I find myself not able to easily access the Internet from my laptop. Sometimes I am staying at houses without Internet access. Sometimes I find myself visiting houses or places where these is Internet access yet I don’t have my laptop with me, such as visiting a friend. Internet is on hand, but my email checking system (a highly customised Thunderbird) and my web browsing system (a highly customised Firefox) are not on hand. Wouldn’t it be nice to carry all this around in my pocket?
These days it is possible to do just that — carry an entire operating system and a vast array of personalised applications in your pocket. This is in the form of a USB memory stick or a pocket hard drive. With some of these systems you can even boot up the OS and run all its applications from within an existing operating system on the host machine (virtualisation). Just plug in the USB device and start it up as a virtual machine. Here are the portable operating systems (all Linux based) I managed to find which looked worthy of my (and perhaps your) attention:
- DSL (Dame Small Linux). This one can boot from within the Host Operating system. A big plus I think.
- PenDriveLinux. This site provides a lot of info on running a wide range of Linux OSs from portable media, including how to run Linux within the host OS. They provide many great tutorials on how to get the most out of your portable OS experience. One example is how to run Ubuntu (v7.10) from a USB flash drive.
- FaunOS. Needs close to 1GB of space (so somewhat on the big side). Does not support virtualisation (booting within the host OS). Can set up a boot CD to boot it on machines that don’t support booting from USB (most computers more than a few years old).
- PuppyLinux. Appears to be about 60MB in size. "Overall, Puppy Linux is a superb, light-weight, fast and versatile Linux distribution with a great selection of applications, graphical system administration utilities and all sorts of unique features not readily available elsewhere. A great choice not only for older computers, but also for those who dislike the bloat of most modern distributions." - Distrowatch.com
This is essentially a LiveCD distribution of Linux. It can, however, run from a USB drive. Does not appear to support virtualisation.
- Moka5 (LivePCs). "Moka5 LivePCs contain everything needed to run a virtual computer — an operating system and a set of applications. You can use LivePCs on your desktop, or you can take them with you on a portable USB drive." This is a different concept from the others listed above. Once Moka5 is installed, you can then run a wide range of available LivePCs (or create your own) which can be run from a hard disk or portable USB drive. For now Moka5 is free, but it might not stay that way.
- QUMU and QUMU Manager. Requires a little more technical knowledge, but the net result is the one gets a virtual machine of Linux running from a USB drive/key.
If you know of any others (particularly ones that natively support booting within the host OS) please let me know.
Today whilst updating Windows Live Messenger, I also opted to install the latest version of what used to be called Windows Messenger. Since my last complete reinstall of my computer I had not got around to installed Messenger. When I install WLM tonight I instantly realised it was time to find an alternative. Why?
A few reasons where immediately apparent.
- WLM is very large. Installed it takes up at least 32MB of disk space. It’s process (msnmsgr.exe) which I started right after installation 56.7 MB of RAM on my system when it is just sitting there open as I write this. This is when it is an open window. When minimised it accounts for about 7 - 8 MB (although the figure is rising as I write this, and I am not even using the Messenger client as it is minimised). By the time I wrote that sentence it has risen to 8.64 MB and is still rising.
- WLM has advertising in it. Not nice. Why should I be subjected to advertising whilst using a messaging client? I shouldn’t. End of story.
I am sure there are many other reasons to remove this application from my computer, but as I am already removing it without using it beyond its initial startup and login, I won’t have a chance to figure out what they are. But the two reasons cited above are enough. (The messenger process is now at 10.3 MB whilst minimised and not being actively used, and still rising).
Here are some good alternatives I found.
- Pidgin. This used to be called Gaim. A nice looking messenger client. Supports many different messaging networks including Microsoft Messenger, AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, Zephyr.
I can’t say I have even heard of nearly all of these, but there you have it. Lots of options.
If you run Mac OSX then Adium is the equivalent app for Mac.
- Trillian. Also looks nice. Has free and Pro version. If you don’t need lots of video related features then the free version seems to do most things one might expect.
- Miranda. This one I have not actually checked out, but here is what their website has to say about it: "Miranda IM is the smaller, faster, easier instant messenger with support for multiple protocols. Designed from the ground-up to be resource efficient while still providing a rich feature set, Miranda includes support for AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu and more. Additionally, with the choice of hundreds of plug-
- ins, icons, sounds and other content…"
So far I most like the look of Pidgin so that’s what’ll be replacing Windows Live Messenger on this computer for now.
Windows Live Messenger is now dead, as far as this computer is concerned. Let’s hope Microsoft doesn’t go an stick advertising into Live Writer (my preferred choice for desktop blog writing applications on which I am writing this). I’d hate to have to kill that as well, because I’ve seen most of the alternatives and none of them are as good in my opinion.
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