Showing posts with label personal software. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal software. Show all posts

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Disk Defragmentation Tool

Thank you Jaksa (my colleague) for this invaluable tip for a great Disk Defragmentation Tool! I've been a believer in defragmenting my hard disk drive on an annual or bi-annual basis (or major file system upheaval event) for many years.

The problem I started experiencing over the past 5 odd years, is that as my hard drives became bigger, "defragging" took longer and longer. Worse, the tool provided with Windows only works properly when 30% of the hard drive is available! Now 30% of 120MB is only 36MB and is not such a bad temporary sacrifice. 30% of 100GB is a huge sacrifice that I just cannot afford! Not on my development workstation, nor on my personal home machine(s)!!

Jaksa pointed in in the direction of independent evaluations listed on Donn Edwards' web site. Or you can simply download the winning defragmentation tool (JkDefrag) here.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Scot's Newsletter Best Firewall Recommendation Made!

After 1.5 years (!!), Scot's Newsletter has reached a conclusion on the Best [Personal] Firewall Software ... (drum roll) ... (more drum roll) ... Online Armor! Read all about it in detail at Scot's Newsletter!

This blog entry by Scot makes for very interesting reading, not just from an interested-in-firewall-software point of view, but also I believe there are some other big concepts clearly "in play":
- the power of online marketing,
- the power of a respected industry leader,
- the influence a key client has over a product's development,
- the ability and agility with which the 2 final contenders were responding to user requests
- and in the future we'll have to see what happens to both companies!

For now, I am still on the previous version of Comodo as I really have not had the time or requirement to migrate, upgrade or change anything else on my home system.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Scot's Newsletter nearing decision about Personal Firewall Solution!

I have been following Scot's Newsletter for a couple of years now and have especially been following his reviews of personal firewall solutions. I like his reviews because he tests the products from a usability perspective as well as actual firewall security. At the moment the 2 leading providers are pushing Release Candidates faster than he can make a decision because they keep making changes that he has suggested or complained about! (competition is a great thing!)

His 2 leaders at the moment are: Online Armor Personal Firewall and Comodo Personal Firewall. They are both free for personal home use and as a current happy Comodo Firewall user I am watching to see if I should jump ship again. His previous recommendation was Jetico which I also liked.

The latest independent firewall leak test results are really enlightening. Make sure you are safe!

A smarter SMART for even better collaborative Objectives (including OKRs)

My favourite coaching tools: SMART Acronym Another Update