Today's Featured Article
Posted by Vinod Ponmanadiyil on 04/23/08 in
Featured,
Productivity,
Software,
Tips
[Update: Here is a LifeHacker commentary on this article ]
The need
Here is a small tutorial on How you can safely backup your Outlook data on to a USB Drive. Most of us who work in corporate environment obviously have our years of communications and documents captured in .PST files. Microsoft Outlook’s PST file format is proprietary but serves as a portable archival data format. You can make backups of your old .PST files by simply dragging and dropping on to the target media. Or use a professional backup tool like SyncBackSE or Microsoft Personal folders backup .
The Issues
You cannot backup your .PST file while it is opened by Outlook. Most of the time this is the case as Outlook locks the respective .PST file. Your backup utilities will fail to backup your current Live Outlook data as long as Outlook is kept opened. This also does not allow us to further automatically schedule .PST backup too.
The Solution
The simplest solution is to instruct Outlook to simultaneously keep a copy of the incoming emails in a separate .PST file created in the external storage device. Even though you can password protect your .PST files , for additional security , you are better off creating a Secure & Encrypted Drive inside your external storage device.
Tools Required
TrueCrypt is my choice for a platform independent data security software. It is free, Open Source and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux with excellent speed and robustness. It has some of the performing yet strong encryption algorithm support. The user interface is very convenient too. It has the capability to make an entire drive encrypted or keep a huge encrypted file on any drive to be further treated as a virtual drive. I follow the later approach.
How-To
Read the rest …
Posted by Vinod Ponmanadiyil on 04/21/08 in
Featured,
Mac,
Software,
Tips,
Trivia
Thought it would be interesting to see a cost comparison of the software between Mac and Windows. The fact is that Windows is having more ‘functional’ freeware for my needs - yet for the purpose of comparison I’ve picked some commercial alternatives. Let me know what you think!
| Mac Software |
Cost |
Windows Equivalent ~ |
Cost |
| VMWare fusion |
$59.99 |
VMWare Workstation |
$189.00 |
| 1Password |
$34.95 |
SignupShield |
$34.95 |
| iWork ‘08 |
$79.90 |
Microsoft Office Standard |
$399.95 |
| KeynotePro Themes |
$34.95 |
PowerGraphics |
$49.00 |
| Little Snitch |
$24.95 |
Built-in |
$0.00 |
| Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac |
$89.90 |
Photoshop Elements for Windows |
$99.99 |
| ecto |
$17.95 |
Windows Live Writer |
$0.00 |
| Leap |
$34.95 |
Directory Opus |
$53.00 |
| Pixelmator |
$59.00 |
Paint.NET |
$0.00 |
| Speed Download |
$25.00 |
Free Download Manager |
$0.00 |
| MegaPhone |
$19.95 |
iPhoneBrowser ~ |
$0.00 |
| WireTap Studio |
$30.00 |
Total Recorder Professional |
$35.95 |
| Mac |
$511.49 |
Windows |
$861.84 |
Posted by Vinod Ponmanadiyil on 04/18/08 in
Mac,
Productivity,
Software,
Tips
gDocsUploader is a nice little OS X application for easy bulk upload of office documents to Google Docs. gDocsUploader shines with some cool drag and drop options. I have the program icon setup on the Dock for easier access.
Windows Users have DocSyncer which supports syncing and mobile access. A Mac OS X version of DocSyncer is expected soon too.
Posted by Vinod Ponmanadiyil on 04/17/08 in
Featured,
Mac,
Software,
iPhone
Here is a list of applications which I’ve bought for the iMac running OS X. These are essential applications for me -used everyday- being milked for every penny spent. Given the amount of commercial and shareware applications available for OS X platform, it is very difficult to make a studied choice. I trial’d quite a large number of software before actually bought these applications. This adds to my previous list of favorite Leopard applications.
VMWare Fusion
I almost always have to connect to my Office VPN and work with Microsoft Outlook. Switching back and forth with the Fusion’s Unity feature is extremely productive. VMWare happily runs an instance of Ubuntu also for me. It is yet to crash or freeze on me. Fusion definitely falls under the essentials category for me.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac
The group photo merge tool is what created the initial interest on Photoshop elements 6. This program is so feature rich that I have made it a habit to learn a new trick every day!. PSE6 for Mac is Photoshop on essential steroids. My only gripe is the lack of the photo management tool as available on its Windows counterpart. But for now I have settled with iPhoto for Photo Management and use PSE6 as the external editor to edit the photos. The ‘Guided mode’ for carrying out main tasks are great for beginners like me. Read the rest …
Posted by Vinod Ponmanadiyil on 04/16/08 in
Featured,
Links,
Software
When I Linux, I Ubuntu. My Organization does use CentOS and RedHat for running various servers too. Oracle Enterprise Linux is essentially RedHat Linux (CentOS claims a few pounds too!) with improvements and bug fixes. Oracle pledges to remain fully compatible with RHL. If are you tempted to try out, get your free DVD’s of Unbreakable Linux from Oracle through postal mail.
Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program delivers enterprise-class support for Linux with premier backports, lifetime support, comprehensive Linux server lifecycle management, full indemnification,extensive testing and more, all while significantly lowering the cost of support for users.
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