Posts filed under 'Technology'
It’s not easy to use your iPod with more than one computer, and there’s no easy way to manage music on your iPod without iTunes. Enter YamiPod.
YamiPod is a freeware application that requires no installation and allows you to access the contents of your iPod from any computer. Plug your iPod into your computer for charging, and you can use YamiPod to browse all of your music and playlists. You can play them on your computer, add songs, create new playlists and more.
Since YamiPod is such a small application and requires no installation it falls into a category of software referred to as portable applications. This allows you to copy it to your computer, a flash drive, or the iPod itself, and be ready to go.
Here is a scenario:
I have iTunes installed on my home computer where I load songs and videos. When I get to work I charge my iPod on my work computer that does not have iTunes on it. By default, it is recognized by Windows XP as a storage device (60 GB Video iPod) and allocated a drive letter (i.e. E:). Since I have YamiPod on the iPod, I can browse to it and double-click. The YamiPod application opens and displays all the content of my iPod by songs, artist, album, and playlists. I can then play songs on my computer sound system. I can also add new songs or copy songs from the device.
YamiPod is certainly not as powerful as iTunes, but having it on your iPod allows you to manage it from anywhere, provided you have your cable, elimination that feeling of always needing to return to “home base.”
YamiPod is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
YamiPod is available for free here.
May 11th, 2006
Yesterday I wrote about USB flash drives to store data in a very portable format. If you already own an iPod, then you already have access to a very portable data storage device. The iPod in its most basic form is a portable hard drive (expect for the Nano or Shuffle), and can be used as such. For a while there, I actually had more free space on my 60 GB iPod than on my laptop.
As long as you have your iPod USB cable, you have all you need to connect your iPod to a computer and transfer files. I have iTunes installed on my home computer where I load my media. I keep my cable with me so that I can recharge my iPod while at work. When you connect your iPod to a computer without iTunes, the iPod is recognized only as a USB Mass Storage Device. On an iTunes computer, you must set an option to allow files transfer. (Edit - Preferences - iPod tab, “Enable disk use”) Depending upon which drive letter you have available, you can browse via Windows Explorer like any other hard drive. You can also copy and move files to and from the device just as easily.
The first thing you will notice is that there are already folders on the iPod. I suggest creating a new folder called “Files” to store anything other than iPod related items. Depending upon how much media you have on your iPod, you could have a great amount of space suitable for lugging data or even using as a backup for your computer. (I still have 40 GB free) You should keep reliability and lose-ability in mind with whatever you do decide to store on your iPod.
Getting back to the iPod folder structure:
Calendars
The Calendar in Extras can be used to sync your Outlook calendar with your iPod. The appointments are listed here as separate files. You could also manually create or export these from your calendar program and move them here.
Contacts
Another Extra, Contacts are stored as VCF (virtual card files) which can be synchronized or managed manually.
Notes
Miscellaneous information stored in basic text files can be placed here for a variety of purposes. These are also read on your iPod in the Extras area.
Photos
If you have an iPod capable, photos are stored here and viewable on your iPod.
iPod_Control
This is a hidden folder that contains your music files and other system configuration files. I don’t recommend hacking around in here.
So don’t just carry around your music, carry all of your data as well.
Get an iPod at the iPod SuperStore at MacMall, the #1 Apple Direct Reseller. Thousands of accessories
May 10th, 2006
Remember the floppy disk? Back when it was really floppy, it came in an 8 and 5.25 inch variety. Before our PCs had hard drives, all of our software and data was stored on these disks and we had stacks and stacks of them. (Keep that magnet away!) I still remember the little sleeves we kept them in and the foil sticky tabs that would cover the write-protect notch.
As technology always does, the package got smaller and the capacity increased with the 3.5 inch disk. With a hard plastic outer case, some innocents would refer to these as “hard” disks. Along with the rugged enclosure, the write-protect tab was greatly improved, but 1.44 Megabytes soon proved too small for any important data. Pictures, movies, music, and other large files quickly made this capacity obsolete. With multi-mega-pixel cameras, a single picture would not even fit on one.
The CD-ROM seemed to fix this for a while. “Burn a CD,” seemed a much more powerful order than “copy to a floppy.” I think people just like to say “burn.” (I don’t remember smelling anything burning.) But the mere 750 MB of a CD-ROM just delayed the problem. Although the blank CD-ROM was fairly inexpensive, it was such as waste to create a CD just for transportation and not be able to reuse the medium.
Even email became a work around. People would email files to themselves, or each other, to get information from one computer to another. Of course the very limitation of the floppy and CD was a challenge to the email solution as larger files meant longer transmission times and many email systems impose size limitations as well.
Another challenge came when computers simply stopped shipping with floppy drives as a default option. For a long time, software installation was done via CD, and there was little use for the floppy drive at all.
In between all of this were a variety of storage solutions. From Iomega, the ZIP drive had some short-lived popularity, while the Clik! drive didn’t seem to go anywhere.
No news flash here (pun alert), but the USB Flash drive has become the new floppy. It has evolved from all of the other solutions being small in size, high in capacity, quick in access time, and very portable. They can range in capacity to a few MBs to at least one gigabyte. Simply plug the drive into your computer, and it is instantly ready to use.
Their small size and high capacity does introduce a security issue. These drives are so easy to lose, that you must be careful about how you store the data. Some have encryption features to protect the entire drive or some of its directories. Personally, I have already found two flash drives but neither had any data that gave a clue as to whom they may belong to. This leads me to an important tip I learned: Create a text file on your flash drive called IF FOUND.TXT and put your contact information in it. If you are willing to offer a reward, mention it. If the drives I found had this file, I would have returned them immediately.
If you don’t already have one of these drives, get one.
Shop for Flash drives at Amazon.com
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May 9th, 2006
Did you every wonder just how fast your Internet connection is? Cable and DSL advertise speeds that generally reflect best-case scenarios. With MySpeed, you can find out just how fast, or slow, it really is.
MySpeed is a free, online utility that uses a Java applet to measure your upload speed, download speed, and quality of service. Go to http://myspeed.visualware.com/ and click the “Click to start MySpeed” button. Your upload and download speeds will be graphed and compared to classes of service such as ISDN, T1, DSL, Cable Modem, etc.
MySpeed is available here.
May 8th, 2006
Yesterday I wrote about dealing with an infected computer and how I used HijackThis to help diagnose and fix problems. A good amount of malware likes to attach itself to the web browser since that is where we spend much of our time. Common tactics are replacing your start page with another, substituting a new search page when sites are not found, adding unwanted toolbars and buttons to the browser, and the every popular continuous pop-up ads. Most of these can be considered adware since they are trying to push traffic and clicks to their sites. Beyond being annoying, it is also scary that your system can be hijacked like this with the fear that spyware could capture personal information while online.
HijackThis is a utility that scans your system registry and hard drive for suspicious entries and reports them to you, allowing you to make a decision about what to remove. The caveat here is that it does not positively identify anything as harmful and remove it automatically. That means you have to understand what is shown to you and make the decision yourself. Often people post the report output to spyware forums where helpful participants advise people the best course. You can also Google the results and make your own decision. Much of the time, the problem is obvious – If you are having problems with something like HotBar, you will see entries for HotBar that you can easily remove. I suggest running a report when your system is known to be healthy, so you can compare it when you are suspicious.
Example output:
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [TPKMAPMN] C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\TpKmapMn.exe
O4 - Global Startup: Adobe Reader Speed Launch.lnk = C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\reader_sl.exe
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_06\bin\ssv.dll
O16 - DPF: {6E5A37BF-FD42-463A-877C-4EB7002E68AE} (Housecall ActiveX 6.5) - http://housecall65.trendmicro.com/housecall/applet/html/native/x86/win32/activex/hcImpl.cab
O16 - DPF: {EB387D2F-E27B-4D36-979E-847D1036C65D} (QDiagHUpdateObj Class) - http://h30043.www3.hp.com/aio/en/check/qdiagh.cab?326
O20 - Winlogon Notify: igfxcui - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\igfxsrvc.dll
O20 - Winlogon Notify: QConGina - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\QConGina.dll
O20 - Winlogon Notify: WgaLogon - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WgaLogon.dll
This looks very confusing, but upon further inspection and a little Googling, you see IBM ThinkPad utilities and Adobe Acrobat Reader entries which check out.
There is a basic tutorial on understanding the output here. As mentioned, posting your suspicious log to this spyware forum will also get you some guidance as well. You could also pester your favorite IT professional.
In summary, HijackThis is a powerful and free tool that gives you an under-the-hood look at the problem areas where malware hangs out, allowing you to remove it.
HijackThis is available here.
May 5th, 2006
I wasn’t planning on writing about viruses today, but I got infected yesterday. Even with a firewall and antivirus, you just aren’t safe.
How it happened:
I was updating websites, and using my editing software. I wanted to open a text file with Notepad, but when I chose to “Open with” I slipped onto an unfamiliar EXE file in my root directory and all hell broke loose.
Norton alerted me to some malicious scripts running, so I started closing things down, but not soon enough. Before the dust settled, I had multiple ad windows and a dozen icons on my desktop for poker, games, and adult sites.
IMPORTANT LESSON: As soon as you notice trouble, disconnect from the Internet. Most of these programs connect back to a home base for their installations. Now I’m not sure where this EXE file came from, but I guess the good news is that it required user interaction to kick it off. Even with the best protection, be sure to answer “no” to those subtle “do you wish to install a virus” questions.
Next step:
After disconnecting from the Internet, I did a quick assessment by running one of my favorite tools, Hijack This! I tried removing some of the obviously offensive registry entries, but they came right back. I had to head off for work and knew this would be a large effort, so I shut down my PC to deal with the problem later. I always hope in these situations that after resting period, the problem will just fix itself. Of course it doesn’t. I think it’s called denial.
Plan of attack:
I don’t use an adware/spyware tool, so I risked connectivity and used Trend Micro’s free scanning tool. All the while new pop-ups were appearing every few minutes. TrendMicro found and removed some files, but things still seemed off. I disconnected again and ran a complete virus scan and more items were found. The ad pop-ups had stopped, but I wasn’t confident that I was clean. Another Hijack This! scan still had suspicious entries that I could not remove.
I restarted in safe mode and tried more to no avail. The good thing about recognizing your mistake right away is that you can use that to your advantage. There were scores of files in the Windows and System32 directories that all had the time stamp from the moment of impact. After some mild research I simply deleted all files fitting the bill. However some DLLs were in use and not removable. Some of the more innocuous components were removable via Control Panel however.
Although it appeared things were OK, I just wasn’t feeling clean and fresh. Some research seemed to indicate that after the annoying adware was removed, I may still have some dangerous spyware threatening to capture my personal information. I then remembered a little known utility of Windows XP called System Restore.
System Restore takes a snapshot of your system configuration periodically or you can manually create a restore point. It’s not a total backup, but it keeps track of installed software and registry settings. I ran the utility located in Start - Program Files - Accessories - System Tools - System Restore (perhaps I know why it’s not very popular), and I found there was a restore point available from the night before.
When you restore, you don’t have to worry about losing any data files you may have created, and I hadn’t installed any software in a while, so I felt that restoring would be best. Also, I could always reapply my changes with the same utility.
The system restored and restarted and everything seemed fine. I ran Hijack This! and felt much better about the scan results, and glad I didn’t just settle. I saw the offending W.EXE in my root directory. Scarily, virus scanning it did not find anything wrong. I continued to look for clues of infection, even doing complete scans and everything seemed as it was.
Conclusion:
You can never be too careful. Make sure you have virus software and the definitions are up-to-date. Make sure you have a firewall for your broadband connection. Make periodic backups of your files. Scan for viruses and spyware regularly. Using system restore, setup a manual restore point before making any changes to your system. Uninstall and virus removal tools don’t get everything. The weakest point in all of this security tends to be the user. Don’t run programs you are unfamiliar with and be cautious about installing questionable software.
In future articles, I will discuss the utilities and methods described.
Let’s be careful out there.
May 4th, 2006
Working with large media files requires a lot of hard drive space. Sometimes you abandon a project that leaves large files tucked away in places you will never remember. In my quest to keep my computers running smoothly and efficiently, I am always looking to reclaim space. Yesterday I wrote about CCleaner which removes temporary files and the like, but this won’t help make decisions about other files, and scouring your hard drive for files to remove can be a tedious task.
The first question you should ask is, “where are all of these files and how much space are they taking up?” Today’s cool, free, utility is called Folder Size. It is a single file program that requires no installation. After launching it, you are presented with your computer’s directory structure. Double-click any drive or folder, and Folder Size scans all of the files in the subdirectories and provides a bar graph showing the largest directories at the top. By clicking on any of the bars, you can further break down the contents of subdirectories. You can then explore any of these and remove files - at your own risk of course.
This brings up an important rant: If you have a 30GB hard drive and you have only used about 5GB, don’t go “cleaning up” things if you are not sure what you are doing. I have gotten plenty of calls from people that thought they were doing themselves a favor by deleting files they didn’t think they needed.
Rule of thumb: If you didn’t create the files and don’t know what they are, then DON’T DELETE THEM.
Folder Size is available here.
May 3rd, 2006
Windows has a way of slowing down over time. Temp files, browser cache, old installations, etc., add to the bloat of start-up performance and disk space. I used to be able to manually review some of these items and easily fix them, but it had become too much of a task and not thorough enough. CCleaner is a free utility that performs many tasks to address this.
Short for “Crap Cleaner”, CCleaner does just that. Described as a freeware PC optimization tool, CCleaner removes the temporary files from your system that fill up your hard drive and slow your system down. Another benefit is that of privacy – to quickly remove cookies, browser history, and temporary Internet files. There are a number of more advanced features that may also be of interest.
Also, did I mention it’s free?
CCleaner is available here.
May 2nd, 2006
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