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Archive for the 'Using Open Source' Category

Alternative Disk/Partition Cloning Tools

Published by
Ken
at 25 April, 2008 in Using Open Source and Utilities & Drivers. 2 Comments

My question today is ‘What are the open source/free alternatives to disk/partition cloning tools like Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image or Paragon Drive Backup.”

The selection has certainly improved and matured since I research this topic more than 2 years ago. Back then a few alternatives (including SystemRescueCD and PartD, Partition Saving) was tested but none gives the comfort that the restore would be fail-proof should the need suddenly appears. The main problem I remembered was NTFS wasn’t well supported at that time. In the end I stuck to Norton Ghost.

Now it is time to return to this topic after installing 2 PCs in 2 days and potentially having to provision 100 more PCs to come.

Let me list the alternatives and I will get back with the result in a few days. In the meantime, if you have any experience, good or bad, with open source/free disk clone utilities, please leave a comment.

  3. UBCD - Ultimate Boot CD for Windows
  5. FOG - Free, Ghost-like Cloning Solution
  8. PING - Partimage is Not Ghost
  9. Linux Rescue Server - this one is interesting from an overall system management point of view.

Wikipedia has a good article to learn more about disk cloning.

Popularity: 30%

Open Source at the Expense of Productivity?

Published by
Ken
at 26 January, 2007 in Using Open Source and Editorial. 4 Comments

One major stopping block for business to use Open Source softwares is the steep learning curve in learning a new software. Time spent on learning new software tool (whether open source ir not) is time wasted on business productivity.

This money-time trade off is a main driver of commercial softwares. A locked-in is created once a user is productive with a software and the cost to change is higher than continue paying for it.

As a small-business owner myself, I’m frequently under the pressure of productivity. Not only my own productivity but also my staffs’ as well. Therefore it wouldn’t be realistic to enforce opensource softwares on my staffs at the expense of productivity.

But what about myself?

My Windows-Start-All ProgramsFor myself, I’m willing to spend a little time to further the goal of seeing opensource on the desktop. And I’m excited to report that I’m almost there!

Take a look at my Windows XP All Programs menu on the left. With the exception of Windows XP itself and Rising Antivirus, the remaining are free or open source softwares.

I reluctantly switched from ClamWin to Rising because extra vigilant is called for in the hostile China network environment. (Imagine even the broadband provider is trying to sneak in spywares. Despicable.)

GIMP and Inkscape is my latest goal to wean myself from the twin graphic pillar of Photoshop and Illustrator.

When I replaced my HP notebook recently, I decided to have GIMP as the exclusive image editor. This morning I completed the duo by installing Inkscape.

Having handed off most of my business critical graphic work to my staff, I can now afford to spend some time experimenting these new tools on less time-sensitive projects.

Is switching to Open Source at the expense of productivity?

At this point, I’m afraid the answer is qualified yes. I’m not sure how I can quantify and justify my time spent on using open source alternatives except for the fact that I’m an enthusiast and am willing the “pay the extra”.

It is a qualified yes because the answer applies to the case of switching to an open source alternative in the place of an existing, productive, commercial product.

What is your experience of switching to open source? Is it self-imposed? Company imposed?

Popularity: 38%

OpenOffice Solutions

Published by
Ken
at 8 November, 2006 in Using Open Source, Related elsewhere and Business & Productivity. 0 Comments

OpenOfficeI had been using OpenOffice for more than a years now for all my office documents.

So far it had been nothing fancy and I had no trouble doing day to day document processing, spreadsheets, drawing, presentation slides etc. Document exchange with Microsoft Office files is also pretty straightforward. There are some glitches in handling duo languages in English and Chinese in the sample document but but not something that cannot be overcome.

My ongoing objective is to extend the use of OpenOffice to other areas and to introduce the Chinese version of this software to my co-workers.

Today, while checking for update, I found OpenOffice.org Solutions on the OpenOffice.org wiki. The wiki itself is a source of excellent information on using OpenOffice.

There is a Chinese wiki as well. From what I can see, much marketing is still needed to get this tool into the hands of the vast Chinese users. Nevertheless a great start!

Have you started using OpenOffice? If not why not?

Popularity: 21%

Build your business with open source

Published by
Ken
at 23 September, 2006 in Using Open Source and Related elsewhere. 2 Comments

This special report at InfoWorld covers many open source enterprise softwares including

  • business intelligence (BI),
  • business process management,
  • content management,
  • CRM,
  • ERP,
  • enterprise service bus,
  • identity,
  • directory,
  • portal,
  • point of sales (POS),
  • RFID and
  • VoIP.

Small or home business owners may not have the need for such entreprise class softwares but it is good to know the open source alternatives available.

Think about it, the day when a fortune 500 company and a SME uses the same open source CRM software. A possibility? Absoultely!

Popularity: 12%

Automated update and install softwares

Published by
Ken
at 16 September, 2006 in Using Open Source and Editorial. 0 Comments

My Firefox had just auto updated to 1.5.0.7. The best part is I do not have to do anything except restarting it.

The update was quietly downloaded in the background and a message prompted me to restart. Upon restart, the update was, well, updated. Done.

The whole process was so simple and easy I sure many software will be following this update strategy. Automated update and install is a recent trend in softwares brought about by the ubquitious always-on internet access.

When the computer connected, the software could check for update, download update and even installs it.

I noticed the progression of different stages of update automation over the years.

Link to update. First there was a link to the download site or homepage, probably in the “Help->About” menu. Irfanview and 7-Zip are examples. With Internet, software don’t comes in disk anymore.

Alert to update. How often do you update your software? Not very often if you are like me. So why not get the software to alert you? This was the second stage in the evolution. ClamWin uses this strategy.

Download and install is the final holy grail. The update is downloaded and installed, with your permission and with little intervention. The latest Firefox does this very nicely.

In is a known fact that many security and stability issues are actually caused by old softwares that are not updated. Auto download and install is good news for the typical business users who may not be that tech savvy to keep softwares up-to-date.

This trend is sure to catch-on on more softwares. Will this trend spell the gradual demise of download sites like downloads.com and tucows.com?

Popularity: 18%

More free and open source softwares

Published by
Ken
at 4 September, 2006 in Using Open Source and Editorial. 4 Comments

At this juncture I had almost covered all the major free and opensource applications that I use regularly. There are still a handful of tools and utilities which I will cover.

Of course this is not all there is to opensource applications. There are still much more. Some I had planned to try, like Gimp and Inkscape while others I had heard alot but has no opportunity to use, like Blender. Still there are applications like Sunbird that I’m eagerly anticipating a release. Finally there are promising applications like Nvu that seem to have stopped development.

Do you have any favourite Free/Open source applications that you like to recommend?

Popularity: 18%

Small Businesses should pay attention to Open Souce

Published by
Ken
at 31 August, 2006 in Using Open Source. 0 Comments

Found this article, Your Open Souce Plan on CIO Magazine (via Open Source Applications for Windows). The interesting point about this article is that it was written 3 years ago.

The article focused on the enterprise and how CIO are paying attention to open source, epsecially on the server end.

Open source is helping turn significant chunks of the IT infrastructure into commodities by offering alternatives to proprietary software.

Well, I believe small business owners should pay attention as well. Whether on the infrastructure or on the desktop.

IT or technology has over the years shifted from a supplementary role to an enabling role. It means that IT is no longer be a nice to have but a need to have.

For small business owners effective and resourceful leverage of open source softwares could become a competitive advantage.

Popularity: 17%

What do you put on a new PC?

Published by
Ken
at 28 August, 2006 in Using Open Source and Editorial. 7 Comments

We just order a new PC for the office. As the guy go about installing the necessary softwares, I reflect on what went into the desktop and how I could influence and introduce opensource applications into the software mix.

Operating system : Windows XP

As much as I want to use Linux as the office desktop platform, Windows XP is still the dominant OS. The learning curve is too steep for the staff to climb. Time is also a factor.

My plan is to allocate time for one of the programmer to explore Linux. Already he had setup a FreeBSD server in the office.

Office productivity : Microsoft Office, Open Office

MS Office is also very much ingrained. Most user learnt to use it in school and is very familiar with it.

I have Open Office installed. My observation is that it us easier to get a non-tech person or less compute-savvy user to start using OO. They do not have much prior experience so learning OO or MS Office isn’t too much of a difference to them.

Browser: Firefox

Firefox is installed and set as the default browser. Especally for the less savvy user, using IE is a potential hole for exploit and melware.

Whenever someone got infected by melware through IE, they are reminded to use Firefox.

File archiver : 7-zip

Graphic viewer: Irfanview

Anti-virus: ClamWin

Development tools: XAMPP, TortiseSVN, WinMerge

What opensource softwares do you install on your new system?

Popularity: 31%