Paul Beesley

“The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.”

- William Gibson

AUP Informant 2

You can find some teaser screenshots of this much awaited update over at EduGeek. Looking back, I realise that it’s been well over 6 months since the last release but I think you’ll agree that the results are worth the wait. During that time I’ve gone back to the drawing board to address the problems with the old version – difficult configuration and deployment, lack of customisation and poor reporting. These are now things of the past thanks to a complete rewrite.

You’ll find deployment is a snap with ready-made MSI packages and a tiny server application. The client can be customised and rebranded without redeployment and the policy display has been made more flexible and reliable. Reporting gets a boost too with a query-able database, built-in reports and charting capability. There’s also a full PDF manual this time around!

I’m flattered to have had so many requests for beta testing! There are no beta testing positions open right now but feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll contact you if and when one becomes available.

As for a release date, currently I’ll just say “when it’s ready”. I’m targeting July for the gold release but reliability is key so I may change the schedule depending on how beta testing proceeds.

EduSweep 3

The finishing touches are being made to EduSweep 2.1.1, the latest bug fix release. I’m also working in parallel on the next major version and the way in which it’s being developed is quite different from the current release. This time around I’m working on the most popular features from the survey I conducted a while back and the results spell things out pretty clearly:

1. Faster scanning – 50% suggested this
2. Better detection of flash games – 50% suggested this
3. Better reporting – 33% suggested this

Other popular suggestions included scanning within archives and scheduled scans.

So these are naturally my priorities and the results are looking good – an early version of the 3.0 engine is already between 10% and 40% faster than the current one and there’s more performance to squeeze out of it yet. Flash game detection is being stepped up a notch by using the same sort of heuristics that are included in modern antivirus software while reporting is greatly improved with a more powerful interface, statistics and charting.

Project Archer

Early days for this at the moment and I’ll be blogging on what this is about early next month. Watch this space!

I’m currently sitting exams so any software work has been shelved for the next week or so. Everything should be back to normal by the 7th.

Not so long ago I heard from a friend about this little service called Graze - it’s an approach to healthy food that I haven’t seen before. If you’re anything like me you know about healthy eating and at least try to give it a go but invariably succumb to the lure of chocolate, crisps, biscuits and the like. Often, the healthy foods you can find at your local shop are expensive or poor quality, and then there’s the hassle of trying to prepare them on-the-go. Good luck eating that watermelon on the underground!

That’s where Graze comes in - healthy, natural food that’s fresh and ready to eat when you’re ready to eat it. How? It’s all in the box, let’s take a look…

 

Yum! In this box I received fresh orange and grapefruit, Japanese rice cracker mix and chocolate beans. The cool thing about Graze is that you don’t know what you’ll get until the box is shipped out to you - each portion is chosen from their range of foods that you can view and customise online. Don’t like grapefruit? Go online and ‘bin’ it. You can also choose foods you like, love or would like to try. Preparation is a strong point here; each box comes with a nutrition sheet that shows the ingredients for each portion as well as how much they contribute to your 5 a day, there’s usually a little serviette tucked away under the main section and most of the packaging is made from recycled materials.

One of the best features is the ordering system. Although you sign up with a debit or credit card there’s no monthly fee - you’re simply billed whenever a box is sent out to you according to your weekly schedule. Adding or removing boxes is easy and you can even add holiday periods so that no boxes are sent while you’re away. Each box is £2.99 which is the only gripe I have - on a student budget that’s pushing it - but thinking about what I usually spend on lunch it must be around £2 per day. You can give it a go for free if you like and get a second box half price using the code XLRQCFW.

The range of food is fairly extensive, if a little unbalanced. You can choose from dried fruits, nuts, seed mixes, savoury snacks, natural treats and olives - you’ll always get one portion of fresh fruit whatever else you might pick. Everything I’ve tried so far seems fresh and delicious, apparently the box is prepared the same day that it ships out. Now, drop that muffin and head over to Graze.com.