Category Archives: Software

Recovering Corrupted Downloads the Right Way

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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You don’t have an OC-48 or even T3 in your home. It takes you 24 hours+ to download the latest DVD image of Ubuntu or Windows Vista. Or maybe it “only” takes you 12 hours+. Either way, you’ve just finished your download to realize that its corrupt: the crc32 and md5 hashes just don’t add up. You burn it any way, only to find that it crashes randomly at some point of the install – or if you’re really unlucky, once it boots and seems to be working fine.

It’ll take you an entire extra day (and night) to re-download that copy.. and this time you’ll want to make doubly-sure you don’t disconnect in the middle or hit the power-switch by accident. Then you stumble upon this article, and realize you’ve been going about this the wrong way. Because the answer isn’t to download it again, but to only download the parts that are corrupt, the parts that you need – and nothing more.

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{smartassembly} reviewed

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Programs. They start off in the IDE as nothing more than a blank page, then (with the blood, sweat, and toil of programmers and many sleepless nights) they turn into volumes of monospaced text, a standing testament to the dedication of programmers and the way they work. Then from the myriads of the source code and the magic of the compiler comes the executable file, the fruit of all the efforts. No one really sees the actual work that went into it: all they see is a file that runs and a program that works.

Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to go. But with Java and .NET, it doesn’t really work that way. These frameworks/virtual-machines rely on the concept of virtual machines, compiling to Byte Code (Java) or MSIL (.NET). What looks like an executable file is actually source code being passed on to the framework for translation and execution. So your source code is never safe, and it’s never really compiled.

We’ve been using .NET for our programs at NeoSmart Technologies for years now, and we’ve never really come across this as a problem, simply because our software’s always been and always will be freeware. However, in recent months we’ve seen some of our more popular programs like EasyBCD being decompiled and its source-code stolen left and right by those that don’t know any better. So we set off looking for the best obfuscation tool for the job, and found much more than what we were looking for.

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EasyBCD Bug-Bash Countdown!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Stop the emails already! EasyBCD 1.6 is nearly finished, and the EasyBCD 1.6 bug-bash count-down has begun!

At NeoSmart Technologies, we operate a tight ship. EasyBCD will come soon, but not before it’s 100% clean, bug-free, tested all over the place, and on-par with the quality releases you’ve come to expect from NeoSmart Technologies!

To quell these increasingly impatient emails, instant messages, private messages, and what-not, we’ve decided to try something new: you can now check how many bugs are left for EasyBCD 1.6! Don’t let the numbers fool you though, they go up and down depending on what new features we choose to add, what new bugs are discovered, and other unexpected things along the way. But here’s a little secret: EasyBCD 1.6 is very close. That number “11” there right now will probably go down and stay down! :)

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Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3 Public Downloads!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Microsoft has just released the public downloads for Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3, not even a month after the April CTP!

Even more exciting, it’s a public download! Now anyone who wants to test out Longhorn can do so, with LHS Beta 3. It’s basically a beta-quality version of the April CTP, not too many more features; but supposedly faster (due to compilation optimizations), and more reliable. But we haven’t tested it yet, so don’t take this to the bank for fear of an overdraft.

In our opinion, Windows Longhorn Server and Windows Vista are entire opposites. If you’ve been holding out on the LHS-love because of lack-luster Vista performance, bugs, and instability: don’t worry, LHS isn’t like that – even now in the Beta stage. 

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WYSIWYG Linux Blogging Clients?

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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It’s amazing: Linux, with all its millions of tiny freebie programs, FOSS applications, and even SourceForge and all its glory doesn’t have a single decent WYSIWYG blogging client. Not one!?

That’s what Google says anyway. There’s “xfy Blog Editor” for Mac OS X and Linux – except it’s a 32MB download of a trial version for a paid program that’s bloated, slow, and unintuitive. There’s Bleezer, a free Java-based blogging client (so it’s supposed to work everywhere), but it’s even worse. It’s ugly, refuses to connect to WordPress, out of date, and very buggy. Plus, it’s Java. And of course, everyone’s favorite: ScribeFire (aka Performancing). Except we’re talking Linux, not JavaScript; and we’re looking for more than a pretty face and a couple of options.

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Please Microsoft, Stop Holding .NET Back!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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As dedicated developers, end-users, and champions of Microsoft’s .NET Framework, we’re making a final plea to Microsoft and the .NET Framework team to save .NET and make it a real multi-platform framework. Please!

Sun could (and did) do it with Java, so why can’t Microsoft just swallow the pill already and provide real support for the .NET Framework on all operating systems? Yes, that includes Linux and Mac too. It’s ironic, because the .NET Framework has so much potential as a platform with its unique multi-language structure, nifty features, excellent libraries, (relatively) well-performing output, and darn-good innovative technologies like LINQ coming-up and XAML already here. Yet Microsoft just doesn’t realize that if they truly want .NET to succeed, they’ll have to bite the bullet and stop pretending that only officially supporting Windows won’t make users leave Linux/Mac/BSD/Whatever and buy licenses for Windows instead.

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Wanna Blog for NST?

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NeoSmart Technologies is hiring once again! This time, we’re looking for bloggers/posters – nothing mind boggling nor anything too difficult: we have another (non-profit) project for the community we’d like to get kicked off, and with our current resources and staff tied-up beyond belief with their current workload (working hard to get you the software, support, and research at the quality levels you’ve come to expect from us!), we’re happy to announce our first open blogging position in years!

We’re not really able to say too much right now, but here’s the (partial) low-down:

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Why Apple Delayed Leopard for the iPhone

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Yesterday’s news: Apple [[AAPL]] takes developers off of OS X 10.5 “Leopard” to hurry up and meet iPhone deadlines.

Today’s news: Why they did it.

This decision was not about (not) missing deadlines for contracts with Cingular, not allocating enough resources to iPhone in the first place, or otherwise neglecting to do the right stuff at the managerial level – iPhone was delayed, yet Apple chose to trade in an iPhone delay for a 4-month postponement of OS X Leopard. Why would they do that? Is iPhone really a bigger deal than OS X 10.5? Does Apple care more about the iPhone than Leopard?

Apple is notoriously quiet about the future of their products – especially their operating system, OS X. While Leopard is but a bump to the minor version of Mac OS 10, it’s supposed to be a big deal. It’s certainly hyped-up for a lot longer than the actual iPhone – both in and out of Apple. So why this “sudden” shift in priorities? The answer is rather clear, and even self-explanatory.

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How To: Open Source + Windows + IIS… with Stability

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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As we mentioned back in March, we switched NeoSmart Technologies over from PHP‘s ISAPI extension for Windows/IIS to Microsoft’s “FastCGI for IIS” implementation instead in hopes of achieving better reliability and uptime during times of heavy load.

Whether you like Windows or not, at some point or the other, you may find yourself using IIS 6 or even 7, and then you’ll be wondering why the open source technologies you’re using aren’t as stable as ASP or MSSQL on Windows. However, ever since the release of IIS 6, Microsoft has truly remade Internet Information Services as a real contender in the server market, providing a highly secure, stable, fast, and flexible web server for the masses. IIS 7 (due to ship with Longhorn Server sometime in 2007) is currently showing all the signs of being even better, with complete modularization of all components and a highly extensible, XML-based framework.

We’re really happy to be able to finally say with all conviction that it really works! This week, NeoSmart Technologies was featured on the homepages of many link aggregation sites (including Slashdot) for our Desktop vs. Web RIAs article. And we’re glad to say that even with the extreme load, for the entire past week we’ve had 100.00% uptime with respect to network, IIS, MySQL, and everything else!

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Who Killed DZone?!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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While heading off to DZone to check out the latest programming headlines, we were shocked to see the new interface. What happened to DZone!?

The new interface is cluttered and unintuitive. It stinks like Digg, and is a hundred times more bloated than the previous edition. The DZone that used to be there was a organizend and professional place for programmers to submit links. It required a reason before you “dugg down” entries, and it loaded a hundred times faster.

But the new DZone is just scary. It’s as if Kevin Rose bought DZone and handed it over to the teenagers to play. It has the same blue shades, the same cliche rounded tabs, the same “Web 2.0” look, and the same exact concept…

How long will it take for DZone to add a general news section next?