Non quis, sed quid. » open source

Curious Findings: JavaRa

EvilSeph — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:23:00 +0000

If you're like me and you tend to wonder what things you have installed on your system, you'll find yourself regularly looking at Add/Remove Programs - or if you're a subscriber to my blog, you'll be using Revo Uninstaller a lot.

Either way, one thing will stick out like a sore thumb if you've been a good computer user and have been keeping your system up to date: multiple Java installations of different Java versions. Now, you could go and manually uninstall all the other Java versions - like I used to do - but why waste time?

Today's Curious Finding makes that task as simple as clicking a few times. JavaRa by RaProducts allows you to easily remove older versions of Java and update your system to the latest version with a few clicks of your mouse.

RaProducts describes it best:

JavaRa is a simple tool that does a simple job: it removes old and redundant versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Simply select "Check for Updates" or "Remove Older Version" to begin.

Here's what JavaRa looks like:

JavaRa Screenshot

License Type
JavaRa is completely free and open source.

System Requirements
At the time of posting, JavaRa supports Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista without UAC.

Installation

Download JavaRa.
Extract the files from the .zip you downloaded and run JavaRa.exe

Uninstallation

Delete the files you extracted.

Download: JavaRa.
Info: Check out JavaRa's website.

Curious Findings: WinDirStat

EvilSeph — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:41:31 +0000

Program Description

Ever start up your PC, open up My Computer, notice that you have very little free space left and wonder what on earth is taking up all the space?

I have and always do, but thanks to WinDirStat I can easily find out what files on my system are taking up what space.

Even if you are like me and know about every little thing that happens on your computer, it is difficult to keep track of what files accumulate over time. Thanks to WinDirStat, all I have to do is run a program, let it index my harddrive(s) and wait for it to generate a report consisting of a tree-view listing of my drive as well as a graphical representation of it too.

So if you find yourself wondering what is taking up all the space on your system or just want to have a look at your harddrives in a cool way, WinDirStat is for you.

WinDirStat Screenshot

The image above shows an example of a report that WinDirStat generates.

Not only does it provide you with a graphical representation of your harddrive's contents, but you can move your mouse over all the different colours and it will tell you what block is what file. Click on a file and it will select it in the tree.

One of the most important features, in my opinion, is that WinDirStat is smart when it comes to refreshing the data it has on your drive - if you use WinDirStat to remove or modify a file, only the areas affected will be re-indexed, not your whole drive.

Give it a try, it's pretty cool to see at least once. I use this program a lot to remind myself of the many different files I accumulate over time that I have forgotten about.

License Type

WinDirStat is completely free and open source.

System Requirements

WinDirStat is known to work on Windows 95 (IE5), Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows NT4 (SP5), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.

Installation

Download WinDirStat.
Run the setup program you downloaded and follow the on screen instructions.

Uninstallation

Use Add or Remove Programs to uninstall it just like any other application.

Download: WinDirStat.
Info: Check out WinDirStat's website.

Curious Findings: KeePass

EvilSeph — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:46:33 +0000

Program Description
With the growing popularity of the internet and the ease at which people can publish their information, comes an increase in the number of websites we visit and register to.

Usually, when you register to a site, you need to remember a username and password in order to log back in to that account you made. If you are security conscious (which, I find, is quite rare on the internet at this moment) and have a different password for each site, this eventually adds up to a really large number of passwords you need to remember. If this sounds like you, then you'll find KeePass by Dominik Reichl very useful.

KeePass is an amazing little password manager whose databases are encrypted with the strongest encryption algorithms known (at the time of posting) - AES and Twofish - and a secure password generator (depending on your settings). Since this application is open source, you can easily look through the code yourself to see if there are any backdoors or malicious code that may compromise your security.

As a cryptography and computer security expert, I have never understood the current fuss about the open source software movement. In the cryptography world, we consider open source necessary for good security; we have for decades. Public security is always more secure than proprietary security. It's true for cryptographic algorithms, security protocols, and security source code. For us, open source isn't just a business model; it's smart engineering practice.
-Bruce Schneier, Crypto-Gram 1999/09/15

License Type
KeePass is open sourced and free.

System Requirements
KeePass runs, without downloading any additional libraries, on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP (Home & Pro, 32-bit & 64-bit), Windows 2003 and Windows Vista.