Review: BestCrypt lives up to its name with excellent features

When you name your program BestCrypt, it had better be the best, or something closely approximating it. Well, if BestCrypt isn't the most versatile or best encryption software out there, both the U.S. government and I are barking up the wrong tree. It's full-featured, super stable, fast…and expensive. Add the $60 container, $100 volume encryption, and $40 for the DiskWipe utility, and you're talking $200. That's $200 more than the free TrueCrypt or DiskCryptor—both effective encryption utilities.

There's no bling, just the necessary controls in the BestCrypt control panel window.

But if you want the best, with a guarantee, you pay for it. In my hands-on with all the BestCrypt modules, they worked intuitively and well. The container and volume encryption both run as services and are transparent to the user except for a control panel. You access containers mounting them as virtual drives, i.e. you double-click on the container file, supply the required password, and BestCrypt the creates a virtual drive and assigns it a drive letter. You then browse it and perform file operations as you would with any drive.

BestCrypt offers a ton of encryption methods, including AES Rijndael, Blowfish-448, CAST, GOST, IDEA, RC6, Serpent, Triple DES, and Twofish. And depending on the algorithm, you can choose the mode such as CBC, LRW, etc. If your company is set on a particular algorithm, or you just want to switch it up across containers or volumes, BestCrypt is unusually capable in that regard.

Encrypted containers are just one of BestCrypt's many tricks.

BestCrypt's interface is extremely well thought out, stays out of the way and doesn't bother with useless bling. The BCWipe data wiper is available with you right-click on a drive, but it otherwise neatly tucked away in the utilities menu of the BestCrypt control panel along with a public key manager, algorithm benchmark, archiver, swap file encryption, plug-in manager and others. There's nary an encryption security task that's not available within the program.

It's expensive, and not for the average user, but for businesses that want the best and the consequent peace of mind, BestCrypt is as good as it gets.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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The 'Linux Diversity' collection: One kit, 10 Linux distros

With all the wide variety of free and open source software out there, it can sometimes feel like an insurmountable challenge to download and try each and every one that interests you.

That's where a one-stop sampler can be especially useful.

A few weeks back I wrote about VALO-CD, which provides a nice assortment of open source apps for Windows. This week—while doing some last-minute holiday shopping on Amazon, in fact—I came across something similar for Linux.

Specifically, it's the Linux Diversity collection, and it serves up a smorgasbord of 10 Linux distributions in a single, 12-DVD set.

'Introduction to Linux'

It's no secret that Linux distributions exist for virtually every taste and purpose, each with distinct pros and cons. Rather than have to download and test them out one by one, PRIZIX's Linux Diversity collection gives you a way to get 10 of them in a single shot.

Included are the latest versions of numerous popular distros, including Ubuntu 12.10, Kubuntu 12.10, openSUSE 12.2, Fedora 17, Debian 6, CentOS 6, Mint 14, Gentoo 12, Mandriva 2011, and Slackware 14. Accompanying them, of course, are a complete set of open source applications for desktops, laptops, and servers.

Then, too, there's an "Introduction to Linux" video DVD, an updated Unix Academy Selected Linux Training Library of 52 PDF books for new and experienced Linux users, a printed quick reference card of Linux and Unix commands, and a complimentary evaluation exam by Unix Academy.

Priced at $39.95 on both Amazon and the PRIZIX site, the Linux Diversity collection comes with complete DVD installations for both 32- and 64-bit PCs, and it includes free lifetime updates. It's available for Windows 7, Vista and XP; Mac OS X; and Linux.

One dish, multiple flavors

You don't necessarily have to be planning an outright switch to Linux, of course. Rather, simply having Linux on hand can be a good idea for online banking and other purposes, as I've noted before.

Similar in many ways to Get Linux, however, it can also help you zero in on what you like.

If you're thinking about taking Linux for a test drive, this could be a nice way to try multiple flavors in a single dish.

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Consumer Reports makes case for Windows 7 PCs

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Samsung working to fix latest Galaxy S III exploit

Samsung says it's working "as quickly as possible" to fix an exploit in some of its Android phones, which could allow hackers to gain total control over the device.

The exploit was first reported on the XDA Developers forums on Saturday, and attracted lots of attention from the tech press. It allows malicious apps to control all physical memory on the device, thereby allowing for remote wipes, access to user data and other malicious activities.

All Samsung Android phones based on Exynos 4210 and 4412 processors are vulnerable. As Android Central notes, that includes the Galaxy S II on Sprint, Galaxy Tab 2, Galaxy Note 10.1 and certain Galaxy Player models. International versions of the Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II are affected, as well as U.S. versions of the Galaxy Note II, but U.S. versions of the Galaxy S III are not affected.

In a statement to Android Central, Samsung says it's aware of the issue and is working on a software update to fix it. "Samsung will continue to closely monitor the situation until the software fix has been made available to all affected mobile devices," the company said.

Although this exploit sounds pretty dangerous, Samsung says that "most devices operating credible and authenticated applications" won't be affected. In other words, if you're downloading trustworthy apps from the Google Play Store, you probably have nothing to worry about. (It's unclear whether Google's malware scanner, which examines all new apps in its store, is picking up on this new exploit.)

Still, the exploit doesn't look good for Samsung, which just a few months ago had to scramble to fix another software vulnerability. That security flaw allowed attackers to remotely wipe phones running Samsung's TouchWiz UI, using only a Web link with malicious code.

To be clear, these are security flaws in specific Samsung phones, not to be confused with general malware such as apps that send premium-rate SMS messages without permission. The common thread, however, is Android's open app ecosystem, which allows users to install any software they want. While all Google Play Store apps must pass a malware check, the system isn't foolproof. Neither is the new built-in malware scanner in Android 4.2 for apps from outside the store.

Which brings us back to the usual refrain: An occasional security threat is the byproduct of having that open ecosystem. That means users should take some basic precautions before downloading an app, like seeing how many users have downloaded it, and what they're saying about it. As Samsung says, credible applications won't pose any danger, even for this new exploit. But if a little extra care sounds like too much work, there's always the iPhone or Windows Phone instead.

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Zombie MMO The War Z removed from Steam, accused of fraud

The premise is a good one, if a little familiar: you're randomly thrown into the wilderness with nothing but a flashlight, a granola bar and your wits. Survive the zombie apocalypse. However, it isn't zombies that developer Hammerpoint Interactive needs to worry about; they need to fear their players.

I got a special hands-on with The War Z a couple months ago, and despite some obvious alpha game bugs, it looked pretty good. From what I heard from Executive Producer Sergey Titov, it was going to be awesome; a skill tree to build a character, socializing with other survivors in public safe areas, and microtransactions for cosmetic upgrades to clothes and weapons. Unfortunately, it's hit some serious snags.

The War Z has had some problems prior to release. Kotaku reported that nearly 3,000 people were banned without any reason, and many more were banned from The War Z's message boards due to a rather heavy-handed rules list (including barring posts that state why you quit playing).

Despite the hiccups and bad press, The War Z was released on Monday on Steam to the surprise of everyone. Rumors have circulated that The War Z was aggressively pushed out to beat the standalone version of DayZ (which gained popularity after becoming a mod for Arma II last spring) to market. The War Z quickly climbe donto the Steam Top Sellers list, but the exposure did more harm than good, because it seems the game developers listed a ton of features on the Steam page for The War Z that simply didn't exist.

Reddit user xlephonReddit user xlephon pointed out some key features that are missing.

After a rather shocking interview Gamespy's Dan Stapleton conducted with Titov, the description and key features list was revised to denote some features as "upcoming."

It wasn't enough though, and Steam pulled the game from its service, issuing this statement:

"From time to time a mistake can be made and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam. We apologize for this and have temporary removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build. Those who purchased the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund by creating a ticket at our support site here."

Through all the controversy and misconceptions, it seems that what players really want is an apology, the promised features and maybe a refund. Titov's nonchalant attitude towards the debacle and his placing the blame on player's misunderstanding of the features list has not resonated well. Is the game at least fun? There are no official reviews as of yet, but the user score on Metacritic is currently at 1.1 and dropping.

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Mac users get an official Ubuntu One client

Google's Drive file storage and synchronization service may often claim a larger share of media headlines than Canonical's competing Ubuntu One cloud service does, but this week Ubuntu One gained a critical competitive edge.

Specifically, after spending a few months in beta, Ubuntu One's client for Mac OS X users became official, meaning that the service is now truly cross-platform. Already supported by Ubuntu One are Windows, iOS, and Android, as well as Ubuntu Linux  itself.

"Ubuntu One is cross-platform and works on Windows, iOS, Android, Ubuntu, the Web, and now on Mac, so you can use Ubuntu One between all your favorite OSes and across devices," reads the official Wednesday post on the Ubuntu One blog.

"Files, photos, documents, music—all your precious stuff can be stored and managed in a single place with your Ubuntu One personal cloud," Canonical added. "You can then access your stuff from anywhere, freeing up space on your other devices."

Automatic updates

Though it promised Linux support back in April, Google has yet to deliver on that promise.

Linux users have made plain their pent-up demand for Drive support, but in the meantime Insync has become an unofficial Google Drive Linux client of choice, as has open source Grive.

Dropbox, meanwhile, offers cross-platform support as well.

New in this official Mac client for Ubuntu One are a feature that automatically checks for and downloads the latest updates, as well as the ability for Ubuntu One to keep running in the background even after the user has quit the Ubuntu One app.

A status icon menu in the top menu bar now displays the progress of current transfers, meanwhile, and honors system proxy settings as well as a variety of translations are included.

Mac OS X 10.6 and higher

Users of the current beta version of the Mac client will need to install this new version manually, Canonical says, since the beta version didn't have automatic update functionality.

Designed for Mac OS X 10.6 and higher, the software is now available as a free download from the Ubuntu One site.

Users of Ubuntu Linux get 5GB of Ubuntu One storage for free; 20GB costs $30 per year. Through Ubuntu's referral program, you can also earn up to 20GB extra free cloud storage.

Do you use a cloud storage service? How important is cross-platform compatibility to you? Please sound off in the comments.

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After its launch splash, Windows 8 faces business skepticism

Among the raft of recent and upcoming Microsoft upgrades, Windows 8 towers in importance but its chances for success remain cloudy among enterprise customers.

While Windows 8 is getting automatically pushed onto new PCs and tablets to consumers, its acceptance in the enterprise is expected to be a tougher sell. Most enterprises have either recently upgraded from XP to Windows 7 or are in the process of doing so, and thus unlikely to embark again so soon on another OS refresh, according to various surveys.

It was on the strength of its dominant OS position on desktops and laptops that Microsoft built its successful product portfolio for enterprises, including client-side applications like Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint and server-side software like SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange.

As the company worked furiously throughout most of 2012 to put the finishing touches on Windows 8, the sense of urgency among its executives was evident, given the anemic share of Windows 7 on tablets, devices which have become tremendously popular not only among consumers but also in workplaces. With Windows 8, which sports a radically different interface optimized for touchscreens, CEO Steve Ballmer and his generals expect Microsoft to significantly improve its share of tablet OSes. In the past two years or so, droves of people have brought to work their personal iOS and Android smartphones and tablets and Windows has a minuscule share of those markets. As with Windows 8 in tablets, Microsoft has high hopes for Windows Phone 8 to improve its smartphone OS sales.

But so far, Windows 8 has gotten mixed reviews, and industry analysts, Microsoft partners and customers remain divided on their expectations for success of the new OS.

Mark Newton, vice president of operations at TeleMate.Net Software, a Microsoft Certified Partner that makes an Internet filter appliance for businesses called NetSpective, calls the new Windows 8 touch-optimized interface "annoying" and "unintuitive." He refers to the new interface's Live Tiles icons as "big square blotches on the screen" that "don't make efficient use of the desktop space."

The interface, he said, is clearly for tablets. "It doesn't play well in the desktop."

And while Windows 8 also has an alternate interface that more closely resembles the traditional Windows 7 desktop, Newton is also unimpressed by it. He dislikes that it doesn't have the Start button, and that it doesn't offer Windows 7's familiar menu system.

He would have been less irritated if Microsoft had made it possible for IT administrators to set the traditional desktop as the main, default interface in their company's PCs, but that isn't an option.

At TeleMate.Net, he put Windows 8 on a couple of tech-savvy employees' PCs and they quickly requested to be switched back to Windows 7. "They said to put Windows 7 back in there because they had to use their computers."

TeleMate.Net has Windows 8 on the machines of a few developers who are working to tweak the NetSpective software for the new OS, but the company will keep the other 20 or so other employees on Windows 7.

"I'm not going to push Windows 8 out to everyone's desktop until there's a valid and compelling reason to do so, and right now it doesn't exist. Windows 7 is very stable, very robust," he said.

He would have made the same decision at his previous job, where he held a similar position, but oversaw about 5,000 end users.

"There's no way I would have ever agreed to deploy Windows 8 to 5,000 desktops and then have to go and figure out how to explain to people how to use the new interface and train them," he said.

In other places, Windows 8 is getting a warmer reception, including by early adopters Seton Hall University, British Telecom and the Emirates airline.

"Windows 8 is great for business because it delivers the experiences people love while providing organizations with the IT controls they require," said Jason Campbell, a Microsoft senior product manager.

"Many organizations across a wide variety of industries are taking advantage of Windows 8," he added.

At CB Engineers in San Francisco, IT Director Jack Mou plans to replace all company laptops—about 15—with Windows 8 tablets and laptops next year, displacing also a number of iPads employees bring from home.

But although Mou considers Windows 8 superior to its predecessor, he concluded that on the desktop it doesn't offer enough improvements to warrant upgrading from Windows 7.

"For the desktop deployment, unless otherwise requiring touchscreen and [stylus] pen inputs, I don't find it necessary to upgrade if you are already on Windows 7," he said via e-mail.

Next page: What Microsoft hopes...

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Instagram: 'Legal documents are easy to misinterpet'

Put down those artistically filtered torches and pitchforks: Instagram is dialing back its unpopular terms of service update.

After Instagram users began exporting their photos and deleting their accounts en masse, the photo-sharing service on Tuesday wrote a blog post to clarify the terms of service changes that sparked fury on the Internet the past two days.

At issue were concerns over whether Instagram would sell your photos to be used in advertisements without your permission or compensation, as the policy seemed to indicate. High-profile Instagram users, including photographers and bloggers, had threatened to abandon the site—if they hadn't left already.

In a post titled, "Thank you, and we're listening," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom said "legal documents are easy to misinterpret."

"Our intention in updating the terms was to communicate that we'd like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram," Systrom said. "Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos."

Systrom added that the company is updating the policy's language to clarify the confusion. Instagram is also removing the section about incorporating users' photos into ads, because "we do not have plans for anything like this," he said.

Systrom also walked back any claim over photo ownership on the company's behalf. He said listening to user feedback was one reason why the policy changes weren't scheduled to go into effect until January 16.

It's too soon to tell exactly how many users deleted their accounts, but now-former users responded to Instagram's post and tweets with apathy: "Damage done. Moving on…" replied Twitter user @AirlineFlyer.

"Listening to the sounds of people deleting their accounts? What's that sound like?" @EricWilborn tweeted.

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Three new features coming in Linux Mint 15

It's been just a few weeks since the launch of Linux Mint 14 "Nadia," but already the project behind the popular distribution has been making plans for its next release.

In fact, last week project lead Clement Lefebvre laid out a roadmap for Linux Mint 15, whose nickname is still to be decided.

Linux Mint has remained at the top of DistroWatch's page hit rankings for the past year or so, making its next version a topic of widespread interest.

Ready for a rundown? Here are three features we can expect to see in Linux Mint 15.

1. Cinnamon 1.8

It's already been a full year since the launch of the GNOME 2-like Cinnamon desktop environment, and the next version of Linux Mint will use Cinnamon 1.8.

Included along with that popular desktop will be desklets, or desktop widgets, such as for system monitor, terminal, and picture, video, and slideshow frame; themes with configurable color schemes; calendar events similar to those in KDE; and new applets including an email notifier and an RSS reader similar to Pulse.

Also coming will be bump maps and a control center governing settings for both Cinnamon and GNOME properties, among other features.

2. Nemo 1.8

Cinnamon's default Nemo file manager, a fork of Nautilus, will be upgraded to version 1.8 in the next Linux Mint release, according to the roadmap. Along with it will come an action API, disk management, file preview capabilities, and user interface improvements.

3. MDM 1.2

Version 1.2 of the Mint Display Manager (MDM), meanwhile, will bring new capabilities as well. Themes, for example, will be able to have borders around text fields.

Other new features coming in Linux Mint 15 include user interface improvements for software management and the live installer as well as a new screensaver and driver manager.

Based on Ubuntu, Linux Mint issues new releases twice a year. The current version, "Nadia," was rolled out in November.

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App Spotlight: Automatically track your mileage with TripLog

TripLog for Android

When it comes to managing business expenses, half the battle is keeping tabs on your mileage. Obviously there are plenty of apps that let you manually enter your miles or odometer readings—but that's still a pretty low-tech approach.

But, hey, your smartphone has a built-in GPS, right? Seems like a smart app could leverage that to automatically keep tabs on where you drive for business.

That's TripLog GPS Mileage Tracker in a nutshell. Available for Android and iOS, this app monitors your mileage via GPS, tracks any parking, tolls, or other expenses, records fuel costs, and generates IRS-ready reports.

All you do is set up your vehicle, then take a few seconds to create a new trip before you head out on the road. TripLog will automatically pinpoint your starting location, though you can enter a different location if needed.

Then just tap Save and be on your way. When you reach your destination, tap End Trip Now. You also have the option of specifying the nature of the trip (business, charity, medical, etc.), entering notes, and adding any applicable parking or toll costs.

TripLog can also calculate fuel economy, manage multiple vehicles and business entities, and support commercial trucks. It leverages 2012 and 2013 IRS data to determine mileage rates.

Best of all, the app can email IRS-compliant, tax return-ready mileage reports in CSV or HTML format. Actually, at the moment only the Android version can do that it; it's coming soon for iOS. In fact, the vastly superior Android version also lets you snap photos of your expense receipts. It offers one-tap start/stop via a Home Screen widget, and can even be set to auto-start mileage tracking.

TripLog is not only free, but also ad-free. However, you'll want to check the developer's pricing page for information on some premium options, like a reasonable 99-cent charge for a single-year report or $4.99 for unlimited reports, receipt photos, and the like.

Android users should definitely check this out. The iOS crowd may want to wait at least until mileage reporting is enabled, as the app isn't much use without it.

Have you found a mileage-tracking app you like better? Tell me about it in the comments.

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