Recover Lost Data With Boomerang

photo credit: rhobinn

You know when you are having one of those days when nothing goes right. Yesterday was one of those days for me. Why Apple make’s it so easy to trash a RAID system using their Disk Utility application, I’ll never know, but that’s exactly what happened to me. In the blink of an eye my whole development system was wiped out. This is something I’m quite used to, before we had an amazingly expensive security system installed, our offices were robbed on a yearly basis, the targets off these crimes were always our development teams Macs, so I’m no stranger to lost work. The problem was I had a days work that was not backed up. After a frantic search my colleague suggested we try Boomerang Disk Recovery.

Using an external boot disk and a copy of Boomerang I was given the chance to recover all of my lost files. The only downside was that after the many hours waiting for it to scan the 1TB system I had to spend a couple of hundred dollers to get everything back. No problem though, a free license key is available that allows you to recover up to 1MB of data. Not much, but just enough to get the text files I needed. They offer variously low priced licenses that are restricted to a couple of megs, well worth the price for a one-off disk rescue. Oh, and it’s also available for Windows.

If anybody can recommend a freeware application that can recover a striped RAID system then I’d love to hear about it. Also, leave any shout-outs for applications, free or otherwise, that have saved you from an IT disaster in the comments.

Boomerang is available here for Mac and Windows.

Windows 7 User Interface

photo credit: Jule_Berlin

I just read an article on Ars Techinca about Microsoft’s announce user interface changes in Windows 7. They claim that these are most significant changes since Windows95. Looking at the screenshots it is evident that Microsoft are taking even more inspiration from Apple’s Finder and Dock. The new Taskbar will look very familar to anyone with a little experience with Mac OS X. The loss of the sidebar, with Gadgets now avaible across the desktop gives functionality almost identical to Dashboard.

I’m not being totally critical of Microsoft here. The closer the Windows experience comes to Mac OS X, the happier I will be to use it. What is interesting is that Microsoft have invested hugely in research with their User Experience program, you know, those annoying popups you see when you first install a piece of Microsoft software. The result of all this is come to the same conclusions that Apple had years ago.

That said, there are a couple of interesting ideas in there. I particularly like the idea of windows resizing and adapting depending on which side of the screen I drag them to. This isn’t totally original though, I had a dabble with Sticky Windows a while ago. The new Start menu functionality sounds useful, I just hope developers can access the new functionality outside of the .Net Framework.

The question is, will these UI changes excite users enough to finnally give up their old Windows XP habit? I think the big M$ might be able to pull it off this time as they clearly plan on improving how their software is used and looks rather than mess with all the hidden internals that most customers can’t appreciate.

• First Look at Windows 7’s User Interface Ars Technica
  
• Engineering Windows 7 Microsoft Blog

Farewell To Google Chrome

Today I made a decision, I’ve decided to retire Google Chrome from my toolset. I’ve been using it since release and generally I’ve been impressed. It is a really nice piece of software, but no matter what the Google marketing machine tells me about how it’s process-per-tab trick will make my life better and how quick its Javascript engine is I can’t seem to give up Firefox.

photo credit: law_keven

I’ve found a pattern in my browser usage, particularly since I started blogging. After booting into Windows I always launch Chrome, check my GMail then switch to Google Reader to catchup on some feeds, then the general surfing starts. It’s at this point that Chrome starts to hold me back. I’m a big fan of Firefox extensions and there’s a few that I use all the time and they give me functionality that I can’t currently get in Chrome.

I didn’t realise how much I relied on extensions when I first decided to try experimenting with Chrome so I’m switching back. There are a few things that I would like in Firefox that you don’t get by default, luckily Lifehacker has a couple of post referring to some extensions that will give me those things I need. I’ve cherry picked my favorites:-

• Download Statusbar – This has always been a must for me, even before Chrome.
• Omnibar – I’ve found myself using Firefox but accidentally typing searches in the address bar, I really like this feature.
• Locationbar – Greying out the unimportant parts of the URL in the address bar, I don’t really know why I like this.
• Personal Menu – I’m not really sure about this one, but losing the menubar streamlines the user-interface a bit more, you can always press the ‘alt’ key to get it back.

Of coarse, there’s all the things that Chrome couldn’t give me:-

• Better GMail 2 – A much improved interface for GMail.
• Better GReader – A few nice greasemonkey scripts rolled into a single addon. The addition of the ‘Preview’ button is enough to make this worth installing.
• Web Developer – A toolbar that lets me rip webpages to bits, investigate their structure and edit them in-place. Invaluable for tweaking Wordpress themes.
• Fission – Puts the progress bar inside the address bar, another space saver and a hang up from being a Safari user. Saves having to dart my eyes up and down the screen after clicking a link.
• TinyURL Creator – Copy links to the clipboard and make them tiny. Useful for posting links to Tweets.
• GMail Notifier – I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to checking my email, it’s nice to be told when it arrives.

I have a few other extensions installed but those are my must-haves. I know Google are planning on introducing extensions in a future version (Link), and you can currently download a build with Greasemonkey support, so I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on it as things develop. For now though, I’m afraid it’s bye-bye Chrome.

So, are you a Chrome lover and have left Firefox behind like a jilted lover? Or are sticking by the Mozilla browser? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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