Archive for March, 2008
This Month in 2000: AOL
Posted on March 10, 2008, under Tools and Services.
Courtesy of the Wayback Machine, it’s AOL in March of 2000.
No Comments
G-Archiver Is a Scam, Don’t Blame Shareware
Posted on March 10, 2008, under Development, Software, Tools and Services.
Originating from Jeff Attwood’s blog, Coding Horror about G-Archiver being a scam. The application, meant to backup your GMail account apparently emails your username and password to the developers GMail account. You can read more about it at Coding Horror, a great blog I and many follow, but what struck me was the backlash on shareware. It hit me a little personal, being a developer myself and relying on paid software to make a living. And honestly if anyone would have taken two minutes to take a look at the companies site, it would have rubbed them the wrong way and they probably would not have installed the software. Take a minute and research the company, just as you would before you purchase something.
This kind of lash out really rubs me the wrong way, for several reasons:
1) Yes, there are spyware ridden shareware applications out there, just as there is bad everywhere there is good.
2) As a company sometime you do not even list the application on the shareware site yourself, an affiliate does.
3) We have become a society expecting everything free; from ad blockers, movies and music pirating, everyone is looking for the free tool for them to use and in turn make money off with whatever they do for a living.
I am no angel, so please do not take this the wrong way. I am simply saying that there are software developers out there that put a lot of time, money, resources, etc, into making good software. Your purchasing the software helps the development of future versions with better features that make your life easier and more productive.
The same thing can be said about web sites that you turn over a username and password to. The majority of people use the same username and password for most all of their needs. You do not know what, if any, encryption or data storage methods these web sites are using. What kind of security they have on their servers. If any employee can get into the database and look up a username and password. This type of stuff can happen with web sites, you just do not know about it because you can not reverse engineer the source code on the server.
Don’t blacklist everything just because there is one bad egg.
2 Comments
Eliminating the Need for Common Desktop Apps
Posted on March 6, 2008, under Adobe AIR, Browsers, Development, Software, Tools and Services, Windows.
As a desktop software developer, it is hard to admit that I have enjoyed moving my common applications to web services. Like many these days, I am not tied to just one computer. A desktop, laptop, and computer at work are just some. I eliminated the need for Outlook, as I use Google Apps for all of my mail, calendar, and most documents. The convenience of having access to your data from anywhere is huge. However, when I am at the desktop I want to use some of my web services like a desktop app.
For example Meebo. I have been using Meebo for my IM needs for some time, I love it. However having a full screen browser open all the time kind of sucks. There is a project called mebone written in Adobe Air, however it looks like it has since been abandoned. I ran into a version restriction of Air, an annoyance I have highlighted before about Air. I am not going to go and install a beta version of Air just to run a specific Air application.
I ran across a link to Prism, a project from the Mozilla folks. At it’s current state, Prism is little more than an isolated Firefox browser. You can install any URL as a "Web App" and run it stand alone. The road map looks really good for the project, and I can’t wait to see what comes. There is a lot of potential there. I like Prism for several reasons. The main reason is it allows me to run my mail, calendar, docs in a stand alone quick to launch browser that acts like a desktop application. This works great for Meebo, and my mail.
There are some applications that I personally would never see feasible to use as an online service. Photoshop, podcatchers, backup software, are some on my list. But the connection from the desktop to web services via applications like Prism are priceless.
No Comments
