Lazybit

A new version of SIM Manager was released the other day, it brings changes on multiple fronts:

• features
• names
• costs

The 3.x branch is a major step forward, the program will be extended in these directions:

• More online synchronization services will be supported. At the moment SIM Manager can synchronize with Yahoo! Contacts and Google Contacts; it can also retrieve the phonebook from Facebook and write it to the SIM. We'll add new services to this list. The most likely candidates are Microsoft Live and Nokia Ovi - but our priorities will be determined by the feedback we receive from people. So if you are interested in seeing your favourite service in SIM Manager - let us know.
• Other methods of retrieving SMS and address books will be added. The first point in the roadmap is retrieving the data via Bluetooth or infrared, thus you won't need any cables or readers at all.
• SyncML support - so you can synchronize with any online service that relies on SyncML to get its job done.

What happens to the names:

• We decided to ditch the number sufix in the name, because it creates confusion among people (and sometimes among dekarters). There will be no more "SIM Manager 2" and "SIM Manager 1.x".
• SIM Manager is the name that we're keeping, the version number is not a part of the name anymore.
• SIMple is the name we chose for a simplified version of SIM Manager - the one you get for free when you purchase our SIM reader. SIMple is not as feature-rich, it lacks the online synchronization features and it cannot exchange data with other systems; it does only one thing - read and write to the SIM. Of course, this can be more than enough for most of us.
• If you're interested in any of the old versions, you can find them on our FTP archive.

Costs:

• The cost of the program is the same.

• There are three update options:

  • From 1.x to 3.x - USD 13
  • From 2.x to 3.x - USD 3
  • From SIMple to SIM Manager - USD 9.90

  • Secret option 4 out of 3 - get it for free, if you do one of these:

    • become a fan of Dekart on Facebook
    • tweet about us
    • write about us on your site
    • or you can just drop us an email and explain why you deserve the license; we're open to arguments :-)

The latest version, at this point, is 3.0, here's a direct download link - it always points to the latest version.

As I write these lines, we're already done adding some changes to 3.1, which will significantly reduce the amount of time needed to write data to cards.

Stay tuned, and have fun with SIM Manager - the best SIM card management program out there.

A new release is going to be made public in the nearest future - Private Disk 2.11 is here. This version brings us one step closer to Private Disk 3.0, adding some new features.

Private Disk Explorer is the major new feature of this release - it enables you to access your encrypted disks even on systems where you don't have administrator privileges.

Yes, that's right! Private Disk is the first program of its kind that can run on any computer, in any circumstances; from Windows 9x to Vista and the not-yet-official Seven - your encrypted files are at your fingertips.

You will be able to explore NTFS and FAT32 images, regardless of their size, having the possibility to add new files to an image, remove existing ones or replace them with updated versions.

From now on Private Disk is unarguably the best option for those who need rock-solid encryption and mobility.

Other changes include:

• faster start-up times - the 2.10 had a noticeable delay in its start up time, caused by the run as a service mode. This problem has been addressed, and now Private Disk is as quick as snappy as it used to be in the old days.
• improved Disk Firewall mechanism - Disk Firewall is another unique feature of Private Disk, we continue to tweak it and bring it closer to perfection, and to what it will become in the 3.0 version of Private Disk. In the 2.11 release the Disk Firewall is quicker and more stable.
• better portability support - in 2.10 we added a feature that created encrypted key backups automatically when the image was mounted; this feature is a great idea, but it lead to errors in cases when the image was stored on read-only media, thus making it impossible to write the backup somewhere. This problem has been fixed now.

Overall Private Disk became more polished and more reliable. Currently only the English and the Russian versions are available, other language versions will follow shortly.

The time has come, Private Disk 2.10 is now officially released. Some of the changes were already commented in the release notes of an earlier beta version of PD (those features are Disk Firewall's training mode, trusted program authenticity verification).

One of the most important things is compatibility with Windows Vista systems of all flavours that exist out there. Private Disk is now shipped with digitally signed drivers, so if you have a 64-bit Vista platform - you can use PD on it. This makes Private Disk yet again compatible with every version of Windows (starting with Windows 95).

There is also a new icon, which looks good whether you're looking at a zoomed in version, or at a tiny icon in a "list view".

Run Private Disk as a service

This is a very handy option, it used to be a part of the older 1.x versions of Private Disk Multifactor. Once this is enabled, you can run Private Disk, mount the image, then log off - the virtual drives will still be mounted, allowing other logged on users to access them (including those who access them from the network, if they are shared).

The idea is that you can mount the disk and restrict others from changing its settings (ex: alter the white-list, or change the disk's properties, etc). As an administrator, you can start the server and mount the disk, then share it; from that point on end-users can connect to the server and use what they are allowed, without being able to do (break) anything. This feature will help you offer users only as much power as they need to get their job done.

PD File Move - the secure data migration utility

This is the newest addition to Private Disk's arsenal, and it was not a part of any of the beta versions that were made public prior to the release (although the utility itself could be downloaded from the site, if you explored it thoroughly). It is designed to find a group of wanted files in a certain location, create an encrypted disk of the right size, move them to the protected storage vault, and then wipe the originals, so that the files cannot be recovered.

This is a typical screenshot of PD File Move

What can it do?

• Let's say you have a music archive you want nobody to see. Just tell PD File Move that you want to look for MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, WMA and OGG files (you can add your own extensions too) in D:\. The program will find all those files, and then securely move them to the new location. Afterwards there's no trace of the original files, if you used the file wiping option.
• You purchased a new computer in your office, you want to move all the data from the old machine to it. You don't remember clearly where all the documents are, but you know that you work with PDF, DOC and ODT files. PD File Move will find them for you, so there is no chance that you accidentally forgot to copy something before giving the old computer to a relative, or donating it to a school.

We decided not to bring these features into Private Disk itself, and instead have a separate utility to do the job. Private Disk continues to be extremely lightweight (using about 2.5 MB of RAM when disks are mounted), and PD File Move will not get in your way while you use Private Disk.

We are against bloatware, so you can be sure that Private Disk will continue to be a fast and solid tool, and it will never turn into a performance hog.

Here comes the changelog of the final version:

+ added XP-style and Vista-style icons
+ allows to run Private Disk software as a system service

+ added Disk Firewall Program integrity verification feature
+ allows to disable/enable Disk Firewall Program integrity verification

+ added Disk Firewall Traning Mode feature
+ allows to disable/enable Disk Firewall Traning Mode

+ compatibility with Windows Vista
+ compatibility with Windows Vista x64

+ the encryption password can be changed when the disk is mounted
+ allows to create a backup copy of a disk's encryption key automatically

+ optimized disk creation speeds when "fill disk with random data" is enabled
- fixed bug with occasional blue screen errors if Windows Defender is installed

- fixed bug with autorun.inf on USB-drives

Enjoy using the software!

Private Disk 2.09 was released a couple of days ago, these release notes will give you more details about the new version and walk you through the new features.

The final build of the EXE is 2.08.41, if you managed to get hold of the beta, make sure that you are using the latest version by checking the program's About window.

You may have noticed that the transition was from 2.07 to 2.09, so naturally a question will arise - "What about 2.08?". The truth is that 2.08 was released earlier, but it was only available on the Japanese market, as a retail product. Here is a picture of Private Disk 2.08 JP

Since we're into boxes right now, here is a picture of an older retail version of Private Disk Multifactor.

Private Disk 2.08 could also be downloaded from our public ftp server (ftp.dekart.com/pub/), so some of you may have copied it.

2.09 is a huge step forward in stability, and besides tweaking some of the previous featues, it provides a couple of new things that were not available earlier. It is almost certain that 2.09 is the last, or the last but one release of the 2.x branch; afterwards Private Disk will enter the 3.x era. You can post your feature wishlist in this forum thread What I'd like to see in Private Disk 3.0.

Here is a commented changelog:

• 64-bit platform support: Private Disk is now compatible with 64-bit releases of Windows, it runs on AMD64 and IA-64, so AMD fans and Intel fans are happy. Today Private Disk is able to work on literally any version of Windows, the old Windows 95 or 98, and the new XP x64, or the 64-bit version of Windows 2003.
• Autofinish is a new feature that works like Autorun, but is invoked when the disk is dismounted. You can use it for things like clearing temporary files, sending commands to a remote machine, writing some data to a log, and so on. The program will wait until the programs that were started are done with their activities; if one of them crashes - Private Disk will kill the process.
  
  
• Install to removable disk: once upon a time, there used to be a tutorial which explained how to copy the program to a removable disk and use it directly from there, but now this can be done with a single click (see the next screenshot).

• Safe hardware removal: when the program is launched from a removable disk, a new entry will show in the program's tray-icon menu: "exit and safely remove hardware". This will display the safe hardware removal dialog when the program quits, so that you don't forget about safe hardware removal. This change moves you one step away from accidental data loss. Just in case, here is some additional reading material about data corruption and backups.

  
• Hibernate control allows you to choose whether the virtual disks will remain connected when the system goes to hibernate. Some like to leave them mounted, even though this is a bit less secure (imagine that the laptop is stolen when it is hibernating; when it is started next time - the virtual disk is mounted, so there is no need to know what the password is in order to access the files).
• Disk Firewall is now improved; the changes relate to its stability and flexibility. Disk Firewall became more reliable (this only relates to the small number of systems on which it behaved incorrectly in certain circumstances). As for flexibility - the feature can be disabled without 'sacrificing' the list. The older releases worked in a slightly different way: Disk Firewall is enabled as soon as you add an entry to the white-list, and the only way to disable it was to remove all the white-list entries, which can be painful if the list is long and it took you a while to build it. If Disk Firewall is enabled, while the white-list is empty, it means that only the programs that reside within the virtual disk are allowed to access it. Now Disk Firewall can be turned off, without letting the list go. The same logic applies to the other list-based features - Autorun and Autofinish.
  
  

  
  Those who are still not familiar with Disk Firewall should take a look at this page (facts about Disk Firewall), there is also this flash clip which illustrates Disk Firewall in action.
  

• There were changes in the API on which Private Disk relies, they will soon become available in the Private Disk SDK. Many other changes were applied at the program's low-level architecture, the effects cannot be seen today, but these changes will establish a smooth transition to 3.x.

Here is the changelog:

Version 2.09:

+ the program can install itself to a removable disk
+ allows to have access to the encrypted disk for programs that are run from the encrypted disk only
+ improved disk backing up mechanism
+ allows to disable/enable Autorun feature
+ allows to disable/enable Disk Firewall feature
+ allows to define programs to be automatically run on disk dismounting
+ allows the user to exit Private Disk software and safely remove the USB drive if it has been run from the USB drive
+ allows the user to choose whether the disk will be dismounted or mounted if the PC goes to hibernate
+ allows the user to choose whether chkdsk will be called before the backing up the encrypted disk
- fixed bug with impossibility to run automatically LNK/PIF-files with long paths

Version 2.08:

+ compatibility with Windows XP/2003 x64
- fixed bug with false warning "files are open on the disk" if Disk Firewall is enabled
- fixed bug with the impossibility to automatically mount disks that are located on a network share
- fixed bug with starting Private Disk software when it is already running