Filed under: Internet, Windows, Freeware, P2P

Hamachi is a great app. So is VNC. Torrents are great, too. You see where I'm going. These are all great on their own - so when Remobo rolled them all in to one, tasty package, I was pretty excited.

Set it up, add your buddies, and you've got an instant, private P2P network. Click the My Shared Files link and create torrents of your folders and files with two clicks. When your buddies view your shares, they'll see a simple web page with links to the torrent downloads. It's simple, and it works quite well.

Clicking windows file sharing on a buddy will display their Windows file and printer shares (like Hamachi does). File access speeds (even over my sluggish DSL) are good, and at least on par with Hamachi's free offering.

Continue reading Remobo: VPN, Chat, Filesharing, Remote Control All-In-One!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Open Source, Social Software

About six years ago Mitch Kapor, the guy behind Lotus 1-2-3, started a new open source project called Chandler. The goal was simple enough: Create an personal information management tool that would allow users to store, share, and collaborate. It would have things like a calendar, address book, and to do list.

In other words, Chandler is a lot like Microsoft Outlook. But there are a few major differences:

1. Chandler is open source
2. Chandler works with Windows, Mac, and Linux and has a web interface
3. You can sync your Chandler tasks with an online server and share them with others

Overall the interface of the desktop and web clients is pretty, but not necessarily intuitive. For example, there's a nice big text entry box at the top of the application that you would think would be for searching. But it's primary use is for entering new tasks. Type something into that box and a new task is created. If you want to use the text area as a search box, you need to type "/f" before entering your query.
Is Chandler kind of useful? Sure. Is it an Outlook killer? Maybe. Was it worth a six year wait? Maybe not. But now that it's here, Kapor says it's up to the open source community to continue developing the project. And I've learned never to understimate the open source community. If there's a will, there's a way, and this application could be the future of collaborative task management. On the other hand, it's not entirely clear if there's a will at the moment.

What do you think? Is Chandler the wave of the future, or should Kapor have given up on it years ago?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: News, Open Source

Over the past few years, we've seen a number of artists, software developers and others release their work under non-traditional copyright licenses. Historically, copyright laws have been used to prevent others from redistributing your work. But Creative Commons and the GNU General Public License allow content makers to distribute their work for free -- while insisting upon certain conditions.

For example, there are Creative Commons licenses that would let you write a poem and allow anyone to publish that poem on their web site as long as they provide proper attribution. Or you can use the GNU GPL to release a piece of software that others can distribute for free, or even charge a fee for -- as long as they continue to make the source code available for free.

Up until now, the validity of these licenses hasn't really been put to the test. But on Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a San Francisco court ruling dealing with just these issues. Basically, a software developer who published model train software was using code that had been released for free. But he did not give credit to the developers of the original software, despite the fact that the license required him to do so.

When the guy who developed the open original application filed suit, the San Fransisco court ruled that the terms of the license were too broad to be enforceable. But this week's ruling overturns that decision which means that software developers, musicians, artists, and others who release their work under an "open source" license have a reasonable expectation that the terms of the license will be enforceable -- at least until some schmuck comes along and takes the case to the Supreme Court.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware, P2P, Beta

Wuala is a social file storage application that we first looked at back in February. At the time, Wuala was in private beta, but starting today anyone can sign up for an account.

Unlike other file storage/sharing services, Wuala doesn't provide you with web space. Rather, your files are encrypted and then stored on the computers of other Wuala users. While this might sound a bit scary, the upshot is that you can store large amounts of data. The more space you allocate for Wuala on your hard drive, the more online space you can access. And your files are duplicated on multiple computers so that you shouldn't have problems accessing your files even if some of the folks in your network have turned their machines off for the night.

Wuala has a desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux that you can use to upload and download files. Or you can access a web interface. The service is still in beta, so nobody's promising that all the kinks have been worked out. But as of today, Wuala is in public beta, not private.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments