Install Zip Files Automatically with ZipInstaller

I was recently asked if there was an automated method by which one could install all the little stand-alone tools and utilities we recommend to our Windows OS end users. I once utilized WSH (Windows Scripting Host) to automate the procedure of extracting an executable from an archive, copying it to the ‘Program Files’ directory, and then creating a shortcut in the Windows Start Menu. However, a few years ago I stumbled across a great little utility that has become a staple of my Windows toolkit. The program is called ZipInstaller and is one of many terrific little Windows utilities available by developer Nir Sofer at the NirSoft web site. To quote Mr. Sofer:

“The ZipInstaller utility installs and uninstalls applications and utilities that do not provide an internal installation program. It automatically extracts all files from the Zip file, copies them to the destination folder you select, creates shortcuts in the start menu and in your desktop, and adds an uninstall module to allow you to automatically remove the software in the future.” Click HERE for a screenshot.

This utility was originally developed to install the utilities in NirSoft Web site, but I find it particularly useful when installing packages like the Sysinternals Suite.

Meet Your New Mac Toolbox

Many of IOStream’s employees are using Macs as their primary home computer. As a result, we are often asked what tools and utilities we utilize to support the Apple systems used on our corporate network. So I thought I would focus on two pieces of software and one hardware device that I consider indispensable for keeping any OS X based system running at peak performance.

TechTool Pro

For the typical home or SOHO (Small Office/ Home Office) user, MicroMat’s TechTool Pro 4 is an all-in-one utility suite that can both repair and optimize any OS X installation. To quote MicroMat “TechTool Pro 4 is a complete Macintosh repair shop in a box. In fact, it’s so good that Apple includes a copy of its sibling, TechTool Deluxe, in its AppleCare Protection Plan. If you have ever experienced a system bomb, freeze, crash, or indecipherable error code, TechTool Pro 4 can help you get your computer running smoothly again.”

TechTool Pro 4 is $98 US for new users or $25 US for those upgrading from an earlier version.

DiskStudio

MicroMat’s DiskStudio is the only reliable, non-destructive partition manager I have found for OS X. Quote: “When a hard drive is first set up for use, it is partitioned into one or more logical volumes. These appear on your desktop as though they were separate drives. Using the standard disk tools that come with the Macintosh, there is no way to change this partitioning scheme without completely erasing the entire drive and starting over. With DiskStudio, this is no longer necessary.”

With DiskStudio you can:

• Add new partitions to your hard drive.
• Delete partitions previously created by Apple’s Disk Utility or DiskStudio.
• Erase and reformat existing partitions in a number of standard formats.
• Completely erase and repartition an entire hard disk.

Use DiskStudio to:

• Install a new copy of Mac OS X, but keep your original copy intact.
• Install a completely different operating system, such as Mac OS 9, on a new partition.
• Create a partition to hold special projects, such as audio or video files.
• Create a partition to hold scratch space for programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

DiskStudio is $49 US for new users or $25 US for those upgrading from an earlier version.

Protege

Okay, now this is my favorite tool for the Mac OS. MicroMat’s TechTool Protege is a Kanguru Portable Firewire Flash Drive with full versions of TechTool Pro 4 and DiskStudio! Again, quoting MicroMat:

“Introducing Techtool® Protege. The pocket-sized toolbox for the Macintosh professional. This tiny FireWire-based device contains 1 gigabyte of memory and comes complete with the latest version of Mac OS X, the latest version of TechTool Pro and our latest drive utility DiskStudio. And there’s still room left over for your other utilities as well.

That means the next time you need to work on a Macintosh, you can plug in TechTool Protege, boot very quickly and get right to work. No messing around with CDs, portable drives, installers and the myriad of other items you’d usually keep in your toolbox.”

TechTool Protege comes with everything you need to start troubleshooting and repairing any Mac system:

• TechTool Protege FireWire flash drive
• Latest Mac OS X Boot System
• TechTool Pro User Manual
• TechTool Protege Backup & Restore Application on CD
• TechTool Protege Quick Start Guide

MicroMat’s TechTool Protege runs $229.00 US which is quite a bargain when you add up the cost of a 1GB Kanguru Portable Firewire Flash Drive [~$99] plus the cost of full versions of TechTool Pro 4 [$98], DiskStudio [$49] and the latest Mac OS X Boot System [$129].

Protogo

Now, for you DIY’ers (read: Hard Core Nerds) reading this post and wondering if you could easily build your own TechTool Protege thumb drive – why yes you can! MicroMat’s Protogo software allows you to build your own customized, bootable diagnostic and repair toolkit on any portable hard drive or flash drive.

“TechTool Protogo ships on a DVD that includes the Protogo configuration application, TechTool Pro Classic (for Mac OS 9 systems and below), TechTool Pro 4 (for Mac OS X), and DiskStudio. Protogo includes several profiles for standard system/utility configurations so that you can easily set up a device for your particular needs.”

The MicroMat Protogo DVD lists for $135 US, but is only $87 US for TechTool Pro 4 or TechTool Deluxe (AppleCare Protection Plan) owners.

Tweak OpenOffice for Maximum Performance

The crew over at Zolved put together a great little tutorial for maximizing the performance of OpenOffice. Entitled “How to make OpenOffice run faster in Ubuntu,” this screenshot-rich presentation walks the end-user through all required settings to tweak the performance of the open-source office suite. Although the web page is targeted at OpenOffice on Linux, the basic steps are applicable to OpenOffice running on Windows or Apple’s OS X.

In a nutshell, the steps are as follows:

1. Launch any of the OpenOffice applications.
2. Click Tools>Options.
3. Select the Java menu and uncheck “Use a Java runtime environment.”
4. Select the Memory Tab and change the following options:
   • Number of steps: 30
   • Use for Open Office: 128
   • Memory per Object: 20
   • Number of Objects: 20

Calibrate Your Monitor Online for Optimal Viewing

My IT team is often asked about how we calibrate IOStream’s displays and networked printers to achieve true color representation both on-screen and in the hard copy output. Well, the short answer is that we utilize ColorVision’s PrintFIX Pro Suite 2.0 to accomplish this task. This package is composed of the PrintFIX Pro 2.0 software along with the excellent Spyder2 colorimeter device. The PrintFIX Pro suite retails for $649 U.S., but less expensive Spyder2 packages are available (Click HERE to run a price comparison search at PriceGrabber for the Spyder2 Suites and HERE for the PrintFIX Pro Suites).

As IOStream’s employees know, I am a big proponent of running ‘lean and mean’ systems. This means taking advantage of either downloadable tools that can be run from a thumb drive/single executable or taking advantage of web-based applications. Regarding the latter, I wanted to feature two online services that allow for good, basic monitor calibration.

The first of these services is “DisplayCalibration.com“. This tool allows you to:

• Calibrate Brightness And Contrast.
• Calibrate Color Depth.
• Calibrate Screen Resolution.
• Access downloadable versions of the tools if desired.

The second service (and my personal favorite) is the flash-based “Online Monitor Test” sponsored by vanity.dk and flatpanels.dk. The OMT tools can be run directly in 3 different modes:

• An ordinary HTML window.
• A full screen HTML window.
• An executable fullscreen program for any resolution.
• An input lag test to test for input lag if you have 2 monitors connected (You will need a camera to record the counter).

Microsoft CodePlex Community Kit for SharePoint

As an avid developer of Microsoft SharePoint intranet sites for our business clients, I have been really impressed with the latest release of the Community Kit for SharePoint from Microsoft’s CodePlex open source project hosting website. The tool kit is described by the authors as follows:

“The Community Kit for SharePoint is a set of best practices, templates, Web Parts, tools, and source code that enables practically anyone to create a community website based on SharePoint technology for practically any group of people with a common interest.”

I recommend this resource for anyone needing rapid prototyping and/or client mock-ups. For anyone not familiar with Microsoft’s CodePlex open source project hosting website, remember that Microsoft has no control, review, revising, endorsing or distributing control over any projects on the website. They simply provide the web storage for developers.

UPDATE: PlentyofCode lists out the current top 25 live projects that are being hosted, and describes what they do. Information courtesy Chris Gilmer of Download Squad via this post.

CNET Labs benchmarks Parallels and Fusion virtualization products

The IOStream Help Desk has been getting a lot of questions from our Apple OS X users about how Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion stack up against one another. David Chartier of the The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) wrote up a very nice synopsis of a CNET Labs benchmark test:

“Whenever two options are presented, it is often a smart move to weight the pros and cons of each and make a decision based on your needs. If you need to push Windows in a virtualization environment, Daniel A. Begun at CNET Labs has benchmarked Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. The short of the long? If you really need to push Windows, do it in Boot Camp if at all possible. If Boot Camp is out of the question, VMware Fusion was the winner in heavy duty, multimedia tasks by a landslide, due largely in part to its support of multiple core processors (Parallels, as of this writing, only supports one core per CPU). On the flip side, however, Parallels Desktop is the only virtualization product that supports 3D gaming right now…” (Click HERE for the text of the full article)

It should also be noted that both Parallels and VMWare produce virtualization products for the Windows platform as well as for Apple’s OS X. These products allow Windows users to run multiple versions of Microsoft operating systems as well as multiple distributions of Linux.

UPDATE: VMware Fusion 1.0 retails for $79.99 US but there is a limited time $20 rebate offer that reduces the total to $59.99. Click HERE to find the best available price for the retail version. Academic users can obtain the software for $39 US. Click HERE to find the best academic price.

Firewall Leak Tester

I was made aware of an excellent on-line service for testing the effectiveness of your firewall courtesy of Steve Gibson’s very informative Security Now! podcast (Episode 105). The name of the site is Firewall Leak Tester. The site’s developers describe the service thusly:

“This website, on one hand, enables you to test your software personal firewall thanks to different test programs (‘leaktests’), and on the other hand, shows a global vulnerabilities view of the most common personal firewalls in a summary page. Firewall Leak Tester provides also documentation and advice to improve your security dramatically.”

Nineteen (19!) tests are linked from this master resource. This is definitely a recommended service for the IT professional double checking their corporate firewall setup, computer enthusiast learning about how easily computer systems can be penetrated, or home PC users concerned about their privacy and security.

IOStream Inc. Is On The Move…

Hello, everyone! I am in the process of moving and consolidating all of IOStream Inc.’s technical notes, tutorials, and white papers from our multiple blogs and websites to this WordPress presence. All IOStream clients will retain access to our private intranet with its existing (and extensive) support resources. The intranet site will remain as is and be updated daily will new information, downloads, and tutorials. Items that I feel are of particular relevance and interest to everyone will be posted in this content management system for easy access and direct linking.

Just a quick note regarding our website, we are taking this opportunity to completely revamp and streamline our on-line presence in all markets. Please be patient as we develop and deploy a range of new and exciting services. These changes will not affect any of our customer support channels! Existing customers and potential clients should not hesitate to contact our engineering or support personnel through any of the means listed on our website.