Changes, Updates and a New Beginning

I’m well aware that it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. There are a couple underlying reasons but I won’t go into them. But it’s time for me to get back in the game with 2010. I’d like to think of 2010 as a “New Beginning” for this blog. I have some reasonably big under-the-hood changes ready; And if all goes well I’ll be moving this blog off wordpress and on to a separate server.

My Plans for This Website in 2010:

I’ve gone through and deleted a lot of blog posts. Mostly the ones based around linux and the ones I found that were crap. Mostly because when I wrote the articles I did it like an idiot. If there are any dead links, I apologise, Let me know and I’ll fix them ASAP.

I will probably be deleting more posts; I will keep the posts I like and ditch the posts I don’t. This is probably one of the only times I have that I get the chance to clean out the crap and try to make something better of this website.  I will probably get rid of most of the iPhone/pod application reviews, most of the game reviews and a good majority of the rants.

My plans for Games in 2010:

I play games. Not as much as some people, but I play games. I’d love to start fresh and put some more reviews up. So I will.

My Plans for Linux, Mac and Windows in 2010:

I Like Linux. I’m not sure why; Some people have been questioning my sanity that I can spend so long just.. Playing with Linux. I find it Fun, as strange as that sounds. I havn’t found somewhere that I feel safe and secure yet. I like the *buntu branch of distros, Fedora, OpenSUSE. I’m hoping to spend some more time soon going through distros and branches to find something I’m comfortable with.

My Mac is still here, and going fine. At the current point in time I’m using it as my primary desktop computer, But I’m looking at building another desktop computer and making the mac a glorified server. I’ll probably put more posts up about mac software; reviews of mac software or even what I’m doing with turning the mac in to a server and how I’m doing it.

Right now I’m on a Windows Laptop. My HP Laptop is currently running Windows as it’s primary operating system, but with the hard drive space available to me it’s very tempting to break out the Linux distros and dual-boot, which would work well with my plans in linux. Of course I’ll never stop using windows entirely; And I’ll still be playing around with lots of windows based software to review.

I’m looking forward to the new year. I have my foot back in for University, after I graduated with a Diploma of Information Technology (Networking) last year and I’m looking forward to getting back to writing for this blog. I’m looking forward to this year, and I hope you all are too.

David.
-Blaynos.

Foobar2000

So I’ve been through a week of study, paperwork and music. So over the past week, I’ve been trying out Foobar2000, to see what else Foobar brings to the table other than low resource usage.

Layouts & Customization

Setting up Foobar isn’t exactly difficult, but when it comes to customization, it can get a little tricky. Setting up the layout is a piece of cake with the “Scratchbox’ menu, where you can design and create your own layouts of any feature you have installed, and of the seemingly limitless amounts of plugins you can download.

I enjoyed setting up the layout, because I set it up the way I want it, and the way I would look at a media player. Library to the left, Playlist in the middle, Info to the right. Out of all the music players I’ve dealt with, this has the most customizable layout I’ve ever seen. And I like that.

Preferences

Now this is where it gets difficult. Preferences. Foobar2000 wastes no time and doesn’t stop to sugarcoat any of the options, which I actually find great, but some people find intimidating. You can do anything from changing the way songs are displayed, changing file associations, Adding/Removing or Changing DSP’s, to changing the buffer and bit-rate of transferring music over your network or on to the internet. (It can even run through proxy servers!)

The Sound Difference

People claim the audio playback is “Better” than other media players like Winamp or Windows Media Player. This is not exactly the case:

Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?

No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of the other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now.

http://www.foobar2000.org/FAQ

I don’t personally believe that Foobar, or any media player produces “better” or “worse” sound, and can’t tell the difference between two songs played on different music players. I can however hear differences between 128kbps, 192kbps and 320kbps audio, but then can’t tell the difference between 320kbps and lossless audio.

I like Foobar2000. For the ability to customize any option you feel like, the huge number of plugins available to use; that can do anything from send your music track to MSN/Google Talk to change sound cards that audio is being outputted to with a keyboard shortcut. For the simple interface, For the low resource usage.

Foobar2000 is now replacing my music players on my windows based computers.

David.
-Blaynos.

Microsoft Security Essentials

So just a little over 5 days ago; I said that I’d take a in-depth look through a couple trial runs of Microsoft Security Essentials; focusing on areas of: Virus Detection, Functionality, Performance and Features; from both the views of an end user and a power user. So strap yourselves in, this post’s going to be a long one.

I put Microsoft Security Essentials on my computer on Monday; trying to ignore Microsoft’s last few attempts at Security and anti-virus programs (Namely Windows Firewall and Windows Live One Care), and walk in without any biases in mind.

So lets’ start off with an end users perspective, shall we?

It’s a very clean interface. Navigation is simple and easy; as well as scanning for viruses and updating virus definitions. Scanning is as simple as “Tick quick scan then press Scan” or “Tick full scan and press Scan”. Updating is just a matter of switching to the “Update” tab and hitting the big Update button. Pretty simple eh?

Another really cool feature of Microsoft Security Essentials is the “History” tab, which is pretty much a simplified interface to view a log of viruses that have been detected then either deleted, quarantined or allowed. This is a really nice feature to have within an anti-virus; I’ve had to trudge through directories to find some neigh-incomprehensible log files from previous Anti-virus programs; and am personally glad such a simplified form exists within MSE.

One of the things I was disappointed with was the absence of a Jumplist or Areo launch feature in Windows 7 that would allow you to perform scans without opening the window. What was even more surprising was the absence of a “Scan” or “Update” in the right-click menu of MSE in the System Tray.

OK; So what’s in it for Power Users?

Real Time Protection is a more common thing now days; but lots of mainstream anti-virus programs don’t offer this service for free, but only offer it to people who buy the premium edition, instead of using the free edition. Real time protection is a very powerful part of MSE, and informs you if there is any programs that are trying to gain access to your computer, or attempting to install software without your permission. Real Time Protection can also be set to monitor file and program activity in case a program tries to run illicit scrips; and to scan all files that are downloaded to your computer.

Exclusions. This might seem kinda stupid to some people, but within the Real Time Protection you can set exclusions for specific folders, specific file extensions (.cmd, .bat etc.) or processes themselves.

Scanning Archive Files. Now this is a cool feature; and it’s not restricted to common archive files like .zip or .rar, but extends through pretty much any compressed format, all the way to Virtual Hard Drives. Yes, you read right; You can scan your Virtual Machines for Windows Virtual PC or VirtualBox from the host machine as easy as right-clicking and selecting “Scan with Microsoft Security Essentials”. Awesome? Yeah.

Updating is painless, and runs from the same servers as Microsoft Update Service. Scanning is painless and is VERY low resource intensive; Unlike some other anti-virus programs, the computer is still very functional while scanning.

That’s all well and good, but what about Virus detection?

A group of people from av-test.org that routinely publishes results of anti-virus stress tests ran Microsoft Security Essentials against 3,732 samples of malware in various forms that are currently infecting PC’s around the world, and found that MSE blocked all of them; Both when the samples were opened or accessed and when the malware was manually scanned.

Using Windows XP as a testing operating system (As ~60-80% of windows computers still run Windows XP); av-test dropped a bombshell of more than 545,000 current computer worms, viruses, backdoors, bots and Trojan horses and found that it was able to detect more than 98% of all the samples.

So, what Do I think? I’ve been using it for a week, and think it’s the best anti-virus program I’ve ever used for Windows. Simple interface makes it easy to use, Basic settings menu’s make it easy to configure and high virus detection makes it a safe choice. I’m going to be putting it on all my Windows based PC’s from now on!

David.
-Blaynos.