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Roundup of some great new, and free, software |
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Sunday, 12 February 2006 |
I have always enjoyed trying new software. It's the computer equivalent of beaming down to a new planet. Here are a few programs that caught my attention over the last few weeks and I think are worth a few clicks.
FreeNAS
This falls into the specialized linux distro category. The whole enchilada will fit in 16MB and supports software RAID, all the usual file sharing protocols, and even has a nice web interface to manage it all. If you've got a spare computer lying around, stuff it with a few hard drives, boot FreeNAS from a USB stick and you've got yourself a NAS!
SongBird
This program is an open source attempt at an iTunes clone. For the most part, it delivers and then some. I fed it about 8GB of music and it imported it all into the library and has a nice artist/album/song three pane layout. It's still a preview release and crashes from time to time.
VMWare Server
The concept of computer virtualization is full of possibilities. I've been amazed by it ever since I booted my first virtual machine with VMWare workstation. Now VMWare has released the product previously known as GSX Server for free (it used to cost about $800). It is now known as simply VMWare Server. Unlike SongBird and FreeNAS, VMWare server is not open source. Both a Windows and Linux version are available. If you have a small/medium size network, say 3-12 servers, this can only be good news. Just load up your least utilized servers with RAM and start consolidating. I'll bet most networks that size could easily cut the number of machines in half and gain a whole lot in terms of flexability, disaster recovery, and service seperation.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 12 February 2006 )
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