Power Tools Introduction

1
Power Tools Introduction

• Motivation Software designers attempt to sell
  to a mass market by providing multiple computing
  needs in a bundled fashion.
• Typical needs being addressed are browsing,
  email, spreadsheets, document editing, media
  viewing.
• Viewing of specific file formats (e.g. pdf,
  shockwave, postscript) may be accomplished via
  add-ons or plug-ins to existing software, as
  opposed to using a separate software application.

2
Backup and Recovery Software

• Multiple software packages may conflict
• Upon installation, each package may set specific
  machine resources, or require that resources be
  set to particular values.
• Conflicts occur when two or more software
  applications require exclusive use of the same
  resource simultaneously, or require the resource
  to be configured in differing ways.
• This may be corrected by uninstalling the new
  software.
• This may also be corrected by saving the system
  state prior to installing new software (backup)
  and returning the system to that state.
• Specialty backup and recovery software may be
  purchased.

3
Browser Helpers, Plug-Ins, Add-ons

• Helper Applications are separate from the browser
• Realmedia Player
• Image viewers
• Adobe Acrobat
• System word or spreadsheet viewers/editors
• Plug-ins allow browsers to handle different file
  types beyond its core capability within the
  browser.
• Shockwave Flash media player
• Java web virtual machine.
• Add-ons works in conjunction with your browser to
  enhance or complement browser capabilities.
• Google toolbar
• Pop-up blockers

4
Web Accelerator Techniques

• Pre-fetching downloading pages linked to the
  current page before they are asked for by the
  user.
• Useful as your browser typically spends a lot of
  time idle
• Difficult to estimate which link may be followed.
  
• Downloading all of the links uses up bandwidth.
• The downside to pre-fetching
• Negative effect Bandwidth intensive as pages
  are constantly being downloaded regardless of
  viewing.
• Negative effect In theory many people using
  pre-fetching on the same site could bog down the
  site.
• Negative effect Requires large cache.

5
Web Accelerators

• Cache Your browser stores visited pages in a
  cache on your machine.
• Return visits to the page can be loaded from your
  local disk, not transmitted across the net.
• Your machine will check to see if the page has
  been updated since the cache.
• This is a Default accelerator technique.
• Browsing technique using multiple windows to
  allow one to load as you read the other, or to
  maintain your place on a links page.
• Acceleration through browsing technique.
• True accelerator techniques

6
Download Managers

• Assists with file downloads, particularly large
  files.
• Large files may take hours to download.
• Packets arrive out of order
• Download may be interrupted
• You may wish to use your machine during download
• Download managers track the process, allowing
  interruptions
• If the file is available in many places (mirror
  sites), the manager may test each connection to
  estiamte which one is the fastest
• Fastest estimated file location is used
• Manager can switch in the middle of a download if
  one site is slow or fails.

7
Password Managers

• Since many sites require username and password
  registrations you have two choices
• Re-use the same password many times bad for
  security.
• Have many passwords harder to remember
• Password managers keep a record of your
  username/passwords by site.
• Good ones encrypt the password so it is not
  easily stolen.
• They may also create random passwords for you.

8
Alternative Web Browsers

• MS Internet Explorer
• Netscape Navigator
• Opera
• Firefox
• Pine
• Many more

9
Firewalls

• Firewalls monitor every communication into and
  out of your computer.
• Permission can be pre-set, and the firewall may
  ask before allowing any communication not
  defined.
• Some may learn over time based on what you permit
  in the past.
• In general restrictions can be made (or
  permissions allowed) based on application,
  Internet address, and port number.
• Ports are like doorways, specific numbers a
  typically used for specific applications.