Binary Bits

For the past 2 months I have been searching for a better Internet Security Software and tried Kaspersky Internet Security, Windows Live One Care and currently trying Norton Internet Security 2009.

Since this post entry is related to NIS 2009 I am not going to talk about Kaspersky or One Care.

I have been hearing that Norton is working on NIS 2009 which is going to light on system resources and still perform better. So I download the NIS 2009 Beta which comes with 14 days trial activation.

So lets see how it actually performs...

Installation

The installation was straight forward and took just 7 minutes, I am not joking !!

Activation

Once the product is installed the activation screen comes up where the product key needs to be given and activation is done.

Norton Account Creation

Post activation a Norton account is created with which the product's subscription can be managed and support can be obtained.

The Application

The new interface is very clean and simple. Almost all the information are shown in a single window. More configuration options are available in the settings screen.

Some of the features which I like is that, NIS doesn't annoy you with its popup regularly. Still it popup's for important information to be displayed.

Live Update

Live update functions similar to previous versions. But there is now a small addition called live update streaming. Norton now sends critical updates when there is a virus break out which is checked at a higher frequency than a normal update.

Some screens for your viewing....

Things I like in this new edition of Norton Internet Security are

• Light on system (Finally Norton listened to its customers)
• Un-Cluttered Main UI
• Less annoying popup's
• Full screen mode (this I haven't tested) at which the popup's will be disabled and less system resources will be used. e.g during gaming.
• Norton Insight, a feature where certain already green listed files and application will be scanned less frequently, saving resources.
• Updates streaming. Now I don't need to worry about virus break outs.

Norton is doing a good work and I am pretty sure this new less system resource usage will attract more customers, lets hope. Let's wait till the final product is launched and see.

An application which, I stopped developing in the middle but wanted very much.

Generally certain tasks like defragmenting the hard disk or antivirus scanning or downloading a large file, I wanted to do them in the middle of the night when I don’t use the PC. But for this to happen, I had to wake-up in the middle of the night, start the PC and then start the task.

For a long time I was using the RTC Alarm in the BIOS to wake up the PC and set the tasks in task scheduler to run it when the PC starts.

Then I started working on a .NET application using the CreateWaitableTimer, SetWaitableTimer to wakeup the PC from hibernation or standby mode. But due to my normal work life I was not able to concentrate and didn’t proceed.

Last week when I was cleaning up my PC’s hard disk I came across the source code I was working on. So I started researching again on the concepts and google gave me a link to a website which had the application with same functionality. Actually even more than what I expected. And right now am happy with the application.

The application has the right name “WakeupOnStandBy”!

 

It’s very easy to use the application. The following steps illustrate them.

1. Start the application and specify the time to wake up the PC
2. Optionally you can set an application to start when the PC wakes up.
3. Optionally again you can make the PC to Stand By/Hibernate/Shutdown mode at a particular time.
4. Optionally you can set the mode to repetitive for multiple days in a week
5. Once configured click Start and that’s it.

When the CreateWaitableTimer & SetWaitableTimer (which this application uses) are used the Windows will take the system to standby if there is no user activity. To prevent that, the application has one more configuration called “Prevent Standby/Hibernate”.

Not only that, this application can be used in command line mode too.

You can download the application from http://www.dennisbabkin.com/php/download.php?what=WOSB

The manual is available at http://www.dennisbabkin.com/php/docs.php?what=wosb

Thanks to Dennis for his great application.

Today was editing the Dilectio theme and suddenly Visual Studio Hung with MDI form looking as below.

Seems like still some bugs are left with VS2008's SP1

Yahoo has launched the Yahoo messenger for Vista. At the time of writing the version was 2008.01.11.428

The web installer available at http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php downloads a 11.2 MB sized full installer.

Once downloaded and installed we get a entry in Programs with name "Yahoo! Messenger for Vista" with a beautiful logo  

The loading screen itself is very beautiful and has the beautiful looking logo.

Once loaded we get the login screen.

Also at the time of installation a gadget is added to the Sidebar.
After you have logged in you can add the users to the gadget and do quick actions like logging in which actually loads the messenger and logs in, sending messages etc.

While logging in a login status indicator shows up with a rotating wheel like animation

Once logged in we have a contact list which has a glossy look and is good but I feel it kind of simple or missing something.

The one thing which I like is, there are no ads !!, since this is a preview version Yahoo Developers might have not added the functionality and I like that. But am sure they will add the functionality in the release version.

Double click a contact the default action of writing a message to the user kicks in and the message window is loaded.

Here when the other user typing, we get the "User is typing" status in the message itself.

The message window has a smiley selector which when clicked popup the smiley window.

The message font can be configured similarly like selecting a smiley.

My good experience with the messenger

1. The UI looks good and has scaling factors. These are some of the power of "Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)" which comes with .NET 3.5 which was launched in late 2007.
2. The smiles popup and give an animation, which looks good.
3. The theme changer applies the theme for that Window. This would help to identify the window easily.

My bad experience with the messenger

1. While typing the message, I found that the text being typed shows up in the message text box slowly. This is kind of annoying for a user like me who types fast.
2. Also the messenger keeps on crashing once in a while. I found around 3 crashes the most in a hour of usage.

Still have to explore a lot. Will keep this post updated.

More Images.....