Featured Posts
Pre-emptively save your hard work with Lazarus
Alright, it’s happened to me no less than one trillion times now and I’m sure it’s happened to you: you fill out a contact form or a form for tech support only to lose every carefully-chosen word in some fluke accident like a browser crash or the accidental closing of a tab.
If it has happened, save yourself some trouble in the future by installing the Lazarus add-on for your browser. (Lazarus for Mozilla Firefox | Lazarus for Google Chrome – sorry IE users)
QuickLaunch Replacements for Windows 7
One of the (few) complaints I continually hear about Windows 7 is the lack of the Quick Launch toolbar for the taskbar. Sure, the icon-friendly new taskbar makes it easier to store multiple shortcuts but you still can’t store that many.
Enter 7Stacks and Jumplist Launcher. Both apps enable you to add shortcuts to folders/applications anywhere on your system… shortcuts that will be accessible via a right-click on the app icon in your taskbar. It’s something that I wish was built into Win7 natively but a 3rd-party app will do just nicely.
[Source: FreewareGenius.com]
3 Great and Portable CD/DVD Burning Apps
We’re all about portable apps here at Fans of Tech. Why? Well, the more crap that gets installed into different directories on your system (and in the registry), the slower your computer’s gonna be. That’s a fact. With portable apps, you just download the program and just, well, run it. That’s it. It’s a beautiful thing, really.
That said, we typically opt for installer-free apps that we can just drop in a single directory to be synced on all of our machines. (I personally currently use SugarSync now.)
A standalone app to burn CDs or DVDs is just one example of what I’m talking about. No clunky installs of Nero (which I think weighs in at about 400mb now) or Sonic or anything similar… just double-click the portable app’s EXE and start burnin’. There are more than a few portable burning suites that we’ve encountered in the past but the following titles are some of the more solid entries.
First up is daBurner. Sure, it’s the youngest of the bunch but you shouldn’t let that fool ya… as it does exactly what you need it to do: burn stuff. Here’s the official description: “No advanced burning options and complicated configuration. No integrated backup-mediacenter-slideshow-virtual drive stuff. It’s just a stupid burner. For smart people.” This one is aces in my book if not only for that beautiful description but also for the fact that the software is genuinely insanely-easy to use… unlike many burning apps.
![2009-10-16_InfraRecorder[4]](http://www.fansoftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/20091016_InfraRecorder4.png "2009-10-16_InfraRecorder[4]")
Next up is Infrarecorder. It’s definitely more feature-packed than DaBurner and offers up dual-layer DVD recording, CD/DVD-RW erasing, ISO & BIN/CUE burning, disc copying, audio track burning and more. Infrarecorder’s been around for a while so there’s definitely something to be gained from its experience.
Finally, we come to DeepBurner. This one isn’t as feature-packed as Infrarecorder but it’s got a pretty polished interface and it provides you with the basic functionality you need: burn audio discs, data discs, ISOs and bootable discs. The premium version of DeepBurner adds a few more options but there’s no portable version available for it.
There are some more (potentially more powerful) standalone burning apps listed on PortableFreeware.com but some of these require a little bit of manipulation to make them “portable.”
If, however, you do prefer the old-school method of running apps like these, i.e., by installing them, you’ll want to check out CDBurnerXP: a great, lightweight burning suite from the makers of Ketarin. In addition, the latest release of IMGBurn added a plethora of new features (no, seriously, go look at the changelog for ImgBurn 2.5) and it could potentially take my title for best free burning app available… period. It is, without a doubt, definitely worth the measly $2 donation that the author is kindly asking for on the app’s homepage. Do it. Be a hero. Donate that $2.
Did we miss any? (I can guarantee we did.) Let us know what your favorite portable burning app is in the comments below.
Enterprise, In-Depth, Open Source, Software, Web
Easily Backup Your MySQL Database
Given how frequently I tinker with different web-based app installs (WordPress, drupal, Magento, etc.), I’ve always found it a bit of a pain to regularly backup the databases for those installations. Of course, however painful it may be, it’s always worth it in the event of a disaster!
I’ve found many MySQL backup solutions but none of them seem to be perfect in my eyes. (Hey, what is perfect these days?)
DESKTOP APPS
There’s Backup Watcher for MySQL but a) it costs $$ and b) you have to “activate” the software in order to use it. For someone like myself – who is constantly reformatting the various machines on which I work – that’s far too annoying given that you have to wait for a new activation code from the company. Of course, if you’re just gonna set this up on a server or desktop that you touch maybe once every three years – it may very well be worth it. Setting up automated backups is fool-proof and the interface isn’t too archaic. Plus, support usually responds within one business day – even if they aren’t that fluent in the English language.
One benefit to the above app is that it runs on Windows. For me, at least, that makes administration much easier. Another such app is Auto Backup for MySQL. (I’ll try and download and install this to post a review here soon.) This one also costs money (still less than $100) but the fact that it appears to be continually updated – it’s now Windows 7 and Server 2008 compatible – puts my mind at ease.
For more advanced MySQL DB management, you might also look at Navicat for MySQL – an all-in-one mgmt app that not only enables scheduled database backups but also provides you with options to interact with the data itself as well as the overall structure of the database. Pricing is much better than I remember. You can probably stay close to the price-range of the apps mentioned above and wind up with many more features at the same time. Plus, the interface is quite a bit more polished than the other apps.
WEB-BASED SCRIPTS
A more universal option (for those on different platforms beyond Windows) is a self-install script like Backup2Mail… which costs absolutely nothing. (The song “Born Free” from the last episode of the first season of Dexter is now running through my mind.)
Scripts like this one reside on your server, alongside your MySQL install, and regularly emails you backups of your database(s). The company recommends that you use a secure email environment given the risk involved in sending potentially-confidential data through email.
AutoMySQLBackup is a free script that’s been around for a while. Much like Backup2Mail, this script enables scheduled backups via the web but, with this one, you can not only send backups by email but also dump them to a directory on your web server. That way, if you’ve got the available space, you never need worry about the size of your DB backups.
What backup solution are you using/do you recommend? Let other readers know in the comments below.
Follow a Number of Different Microsoft Departments on Twitter
Keeping up with your favorite brands, and if you’re a nerd geek like myself, your favorite tech news are just two of many different ways to utilize the increasingly-popular social network, Twitter.
Weave 0.7: One Step Closer to Extension Sync
We’ve been using Mozilla’s Weave extension/platform for some time now and the team, today, launched Weave version 0.7. Nothing major to report in this release, just some performance and UI improvements. However, Mozilla’s always had plans to enable the synchronization of your many different Firefox add-ons. I suspect that’ll be something that comes with the release of 1.0 but who knows what 0.8 or 0.9 will bring…
ToDo Backup: a Free and Easy Alternative to Acronis TrueImage
We took a gander at their free, aptly-named partition management software when we explored how to Dual-Boot Windows 7 Alongside Windows Vista or Windows XP but it appears as though the software makers EASEUS have another trick up their sleeve: ToDo Backup. While somewhat prone to errors depending on your configuration, ToDo provides a simple way to create a complete image of your system from which you can recover… should your operating system go to pot for any reason.
Enterprise, Microsoft, Software
CorasWorks Debuts AppEngine, “App Store” for SharePoint
CorasWorks, author of many development tools for Microsoft’s SharePoint platform, recently debuted what they refer to as AppEngine. AppEngine, in their own words, “is an innovative runtime environment for SharePoint that allows users to download and run plug-and-play business apps from CorasWorks and its application publisher partners, or custom built applications from third-party service providers.” Think of Apple’s iPhone/iPod Touch “app store…” but for SharePoint.
In Case You Missed It: Microsoft Debuts 720p HD LifeCam
Microsoft updated their line of LifeCam-series webcams last week with the introduction of the 720p Hi-Def LifeCam Cinema. Available for pre-order tomorrow (8/24) on Amazon.com with a suggested retail price of $74.95, the Cinema is the latest in the long line of the high-quality LifeCam-branded webcams – a quality to which I can attest. In addition, Microsoft also announced the introduction of the LifeChat LX-1000, a “headset with high-quality audio and a noise-canceling microphone.”
Twitter Invades World of Warcraft via TweetCraft
It was inevitable. Twitter has entered the gaming arena. (If it hasn’t already, that is – and I’m sure it has… I just don’t keep up that much with in-gaming Twittering.)
Recently added to the CodePlex (Microsoft’s version of SourceForge.net) is a little app by the name of TweetCraft. As you’d expect from the title, TweetCraft enables you to both read and compose “tweets” while within WoW. The app is currently on a stable release and can be downloaded from tweetcraft.codeplex.com… and it actually looks pretty cool. Plus, like with any above-average Twitter client, you can schedule your tweets and even send screenshots of your current game using the built-in TwitPic integration.
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Drive yourself insane with Snarl Notifier
- QuickLaunch Replacements for Windows 7
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3 Great and Portable CD/DVD Burning Apps
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Easily Backup Your MySQL Database
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Follow a Number of Different Microsoft Departments on Twitter
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fm: Elliott, You couldn't have said it better. The org...
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