Naveen’s Blog

Today, I downloaded a file that was having the file extension of DAA.  I do not know what DAA is and a quick search on Google told me that it is a PowerISO disc image.  Though I heard about PowerISO, I do not know that .DAA (Direct Access Archive) is PowerISO file’s extension.

PowerISO is a $30 commercial software to create, mount, and edit the disc images.  .DAA is a proprietary format of PowerISO and not handled by other mounting or burning software.

Wikipedia article on DAA also contained links to the program, which can convert DAA image to an ISO image, which I can in turn open using 7-Zip.  So, here it is.

DAA2ISO is a tiny program (just 47.4 KB), which can convert DAA image to an ISO image.  Then, you can burn it to a CD using your own CD burner or view the files in it using 7-Zip or WinRAR.  Mac users can download Mac port of this utility at Twilight Edge Software.  Linux users can download command line tool from PowerISO website itself.  Download the archive and run the exe file.  It will open a file open dialog to locate the file and once selected, it will ask for the saving location.  That’s all.  It opens a DOS window and shows the progress.  It was too fast and it has converted a 1 GB DAA file in less than two minutes.

Mirror of DAA converter for all three OSes in a single zip file.

Related Posts:

1. Virtual Hard Drive – Mount ISO files without burning to CD/DVD What you will do if you got software in a...
2. FLV to MP3 Converter – Free and Tiny Tool Today, I transferred approximately 200 music files into my mobile...
3. Downloading images on a webpage – A quicker way – Tutorial For a post on my blog yesterday, I needed to...

\\ tags: DAA, ISO, PowerISO

My brother works as a service engineer in a company involved in electrification projects.  He has seen a company using project management software handling the projects and wanted to do the same in his company.  So, we spent time on searching free alternatives to MS Project and found these interesting alternatives, which have the same functionality as MS Project.

What is MS Project?

MS Project or any Project Management Software will help the project managers to create plans, assign resources to tasks, track the progress of the work, and manage budges and workloads.  The following is the description taken from Wikipedia:

“Project creates budgets based on assignment work and resource rates. As resources are assigned to tasks and assignment work estimated, the program calculates the cost equals the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level. Resource definitions (people, equipment and materials) can be shared between projects using a shared resource pool. Each resource can have its own calendar, which defines what days and shifts a resource is available. Resource rates are used to calculate resource assignment costs which are rolled up and summarized at the resource level. Each resource can be assigned to multiple tasks in multiple plans and each task can be assigned multiple resources, and the application schedules task work based on the resource availability as defined in the resource calendars. All resources can be defined in an enterprise-wide resource pool.”

Below are the three alternatives I found.

OpenProj: OpenProj is a free open-source project management solution.  This is the first one I found and even I read some blog posts stating that small companies are using this software successfully as an alternative to MS Project.  OpenProj is available in Windows, Mac, and Linux versions.  Site also says that OpenProj has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Galician, Persian, Russian, Korean and Chinese.  Even, my brother selected this for his projects.  It is just 6 MB approximately.

Continue reading »

Related Posts:

1. Photoscape – A free alternative to SnagIt I got the free serial from a promotion campaign run...
2. Free open-source folder locking/encryption software When my system crashed in the last month, I sent...
3. Free mp3 tag editor – batch embed album art and lyrics – Tiny tool I am a fan of tiny tools.  I wrote about...

\\ tags: KPlato, MS Project, Open Workbench, OpenProj, Project Management Sofware

I have tried a lot of free web hosts when I was learning WordPress and other open source CMS applications.  From year 2005 to till date I have tested more than 15 free web hosts.  Free web hosts normally put their advertisements on top of the site to cover the costs they incur on free web hosting, which makes the site appear somewhat ugly.  The ads occupy the large space.  Another disadvantage using free hosts is that we cannot question them if it goes down.  Some free hosts go down even for weeks.

After testing these free hosts for more than six months, I chose FreeHostia as the best free web host.  I have been using it for more than three years without a problem.  I have been building mini websites and blogs for my customers using FreeHostia.  FreeHostia offers an ad-free Linux hosting for free.  It has the following features:

• Apache, PHP, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, and Perl
• Hosting for 2 domain and 10 subdomains
• Data storage of 250 MB
• Monthly bandwidth of 5 GB
• 1 MySQL database (10 MB DB space)
• 1 FTP account & web-based file manager
• 3 POP3 accounts with SpamAssassin protection & Webmail
• FrontPage Extensions
• Free 24/7 technical support and ticketing system

Review and sign up for the free hosting here.

The downside of FreeHostia is 10 MB limit of MySQL DB.  When you reach that limit, you can either move to their paid hosting plan, which costs $1.95 per month and upgrades your MySQL database size to 25 MB or to a better and cheap paid web hosting like DraemHost, which removes all limits.  If you are planning to install WordPress on it, don’t forget to install the plug-in Revision Control, else your database will be filled up too fast because of the new feature called “Post Revisions.”

Related Posts:

1. Guide to web hosting by Kaushal Sheth If you are using Wordpress for your blog, you might...
2. Domain registration and web hosting – Australia PayLessDomains is a fully accredited domain registrar for Australian domain...
3. IDwhois – Free WhoIs client for Windows Yesterday, I have come across this fast and free WhoIs...

\\ tags: free hosting, linux hosting, web hosting

Ever wanted to have your Linux look like Vista? Everybody likes the aero glass effects of Vista. Now, you can get the same effect in Linux too. Get Vixta! Vixta is a Fedora-based Linux distribution with a custom KDE-based interface, which looks and feels like Vista. Look at the screen shots and sure you will love it.

Vixta Homepage: http://www.vixta.org/
Download Here: On SourceForge (708 MB ISO)

Related Posts:

1. Free mp3 tag editor – batch embed album art and lyrics – Tiny tool I am a fan of tiny tools.  I wrote about...
2. How to open .DAA files – PowerISO Images Today, I downloaded a file that was having the file...
3. IDwhois – Free WhoIs client for Windows Yesterday, I have come across this fast and free WhoIs...