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To troll or not to troll, is that the question?

Everyone hates patent trolls (except, perhaps, the patent trolls' mothers). But it's easier to despise patent trolls when you either have a lot of patents, or none. What if your company were awarded a significant patent that could be used to shake down Google and the rest of the industry for corporate benefit.

Or buy food for your family?

Is it your fiduciary duty to exercise that patent? Is it a personal duty? And do you have the legal right to do so?

The first two questions are tricky, but the last one is currently being considered by the … Read more

Billing helper

Timeless Time and Expense provides a simple tool for managing the complicated world of client billing. With helpful tools to help you organize and calculate expenses, this is a fantastic tool for those who make their living on billable hours.

The program's interface was impressively simple, considering the complex work it handled. We didn't need to visit the Help file's instructions because the onscreen direction was intuitive enough to keep us on track and quickly billing. We were able to divide our time between clients and projects by creating a simple file tree display. Beginning and ending … Read more

Billable hour tracker

Timeless Time and Expense Multiuser provides the tools employers need for tracking work time by an unlimited number of users. Its smart tools for calculating and tracking time are a great help to small businesses, contractors, and others who make a living through billable hours.

The program's interface was welcoming and professional. We were able to quickly set up tasks and billing just by following onscreen prompts. The Help file's instructions were an afterthought, frankly. This program mimicked the single-user Timeless Time and Expense in every way, except that we were able to set a password and user … Read more

LogMeIn can control some PCs, even when off

During a recent talk with LogMeIn CEO Michael Simon, I learned about the company's new LogMeIn Central dashboard for IT managers, designed to help them keep tabs on thousands of computers at a time.

I also heard about the new version of virtual network service Hamachi, which makes it a competitor to standard (and expensive) virtual private-networking products in the enterprise.

We chuckled a bit about the version of LogMeIn that's embedded in the dashboard of some Ford F150 pickup trucks, so their owners can remotely control their office PCs. And I heard about a LogMeIn technology, just … Read more

Want to analyze big data? Check your log files

More than a few technology sectors seem to be turning up the volume on "big data" and the enormous challenges and opportunities that enterprises face in managing and analyzing their data and system resources.

There are a number of hip technologies and frameworks like Apache Hadoop, which is used to store, process, and analyze massive data sets, enabling applications to work with thousands of nodes and petabytes of data.

One area that provides never-ending data analysis fodder are log files. For those not aware, log files are usually automatically created and updated whenever a machine or machine user … Read more

Remote access with a catch

LogMeIn's 'Ignition' app for the iPhone and iPod Touch is one way for corporate wanderers and home users to manipulate content on the computers within their control. To do so, there are a few catches. The LogMeIn desktop application must be installed so that Ignition can tunnel into the computer through LogMeIn's servers. Second, the computer in question must be unlocked an on, with a desktop version of LogMeIn running. You'll also need a strong enough data or WiFi connection on the mobile device to keep LogMeIn Ignition working smoothly.

Once you've signed in, LogMeIn Ignition … Read more

Find MobileMe sync logs to help troubleshoot sync issues

Mac OS X provides several log files that keep track of system operations--a resource that can be extremely valuable when troubleshooting issues. When Mac users experience problems with MobileMe syncing, the sync logs can be used to determine the source of the issue, or sent to the MobileMe support team.… Read more

Basic password organizer

LogonAssist is a basic password organization tool. Although it's not as sophisticated as others we've seen, it's not bad for users needing a simple way to keep their log-in information organized.

The program's interface is basic and fairly intuitive, although there are a few things that could be clearer. For each account, users enter the Web address, their log-in information, and any other relevant details. Users must then both save the individual record and, when they're done adding records, save the entire file. This tripped us up at first and made us wonder where our … Read more

Obfuscate keylogging

If you're worried about surreptitious key-logging software recording your every keystroke, Keystroke Interference could be the handy security utility you've been looking for. Instead of trying to detect or disable keyloggers, it interferes with what they record as your keystrokes, inserting a random sequence of additional characters based on a proprietary algorithm.

Keystroke Interference has no interface, and is visible only as an icon in your system tray and Start menu. To get it to run at start-up, you must manually place it in your Startup folder. It also offers no configurable options. However, we didn't notice … Read more

Basic nutrition tracker

Mealformation is a multifunction food tracker that allows users to create meal plans, track their food intake, and analyze their nutrition. Overall it is a solid program, although some aspects of it could be more intuitive or better explained.

The interface is fairly straightforward, with various functions--personal profile, a food database, a recipe database, and so on--organized in tabs. The thing that threw us about the program is that it's never made clear what content is included and what content has to be user-generated. It turns out that the program does contain a fairly large database of foods, meaning … Read more