AkinsTech

I think we all agree that all Adobe products are garbage…and that Adobe is one of the companies who are contributing to the over-complication and unnecessary bloating of software. We should avoid them at all costs. None of this is news to anybody… So I don’t know why it is that I decided to install Adobe Reader on my system today, and furthermore, why I am surprised by what happened.

(more…)

CD/DVD burning software is another one of those areas where I feel that software vendors have taken the wrong approach….providing these unnecessarily bloated “suites” which perform 101 tasks….when all we really need is 1 task: Burning my CD.  That’s it.  I don’t need you to manage my files, keep track of all my “Projects”, print labels, manage my music, so on and so forth.  Just burn the freakin CD and get out of the way!  Further, most of the major systems insist on loading 2 or 3 executables into memory…software update agents, auto disk-detectors, system control taker-over-er agents…you name it.  Nero, Roxio, all of em…they’re evil, evil software. 

Not only that, burning a CD is something that I have always felt should simply be built-in to the OS.  I don’t have to use a 3rd party piece of software to copy files to a floppy…why should any other medium be different?  I could never justify purchasing one of these bloated CD-Burning software suites because I have always felt it should be included with Windows.  Therefore I have always used the OEM versions of Nero, Roxio, NTI CD Maker, etc…the ones that come with your CD/DVD Burner.  Of course these OEM versions are usually just “starter” versions…enough to get you to upgrade to the full version.  OEM or full, CD Burning software has always been pretty much crap.

Well, leave it to the open source community to solve the problem.  InfraRecorder is a nice compact, tight, fast, stable piece of software which performs ONE function.  It burns CD’s and DVD’s!  And it does it well!  Furthermore, you don’t even need to install it.  Just unzip it to a directory and you’re good to go.  This makes it perfect for locating on a shared drive and just dropping a shortcut on your workstations.  Or carrying it on your Utility CD or USB Drive for use in the field.  The installed program occupies a mere 9MB of space, with the core program only at about 1.5MB.

InfraRecorder has all the basic functions you would expect.  Create a Data Disc, Audio Disc, Copy a Disc, etc.  It contains the full program, as well as an “Express” version which provides a simple “What would you like to do?” task-based interface, similar to Nero’s SmartStart application.  Speaking of which, if you’re familiar with the Nero interface, you will be at home using InfraRecorder. 

Here is the full program window….

And here is the “Express” application…

InfraRecorder will burn or create industry standard ISO images.  This is very nice as many times I like to keep a library of ISO images for my important CD’s.  For instance, I keep my Windows XP, Vista,  Server 2003, Exchange, Office CD’s on my server in ISO format.  If I ever lose or misplace a CD I can easily burn another copy from the ISO image.  ISO-creation is very important to me.  Most of the commercial packages (Nero and Roxio, for instance) require you to purchase their “Premium” or “Ultimate” version to get ISO creation ability.  They encourage you, instead, to use their proprietary formats.  This ensures that you will always need their software to work with the images you create.  Very lame.  Adherence to the standard ISO format is reason alone to use InfraRecorder.

Also surprising, InfraRecorder has the ability to create boot CD’s from floppy img files.  Again, this feature is only included in the “Ultimate” version of Nero, so I am glad to see it included in InfraRecorder.  InfraRecorder follows the well-establish “El Torito” boot disk standard.  I hope to do a “How-To” later about creating floppy img files and boot CD’s.

One thing you should be aware of….if you want to make an Audio compilation disc (not copy an Audio disc, but compile one from existing MP3 files) you’ll need to install the MP3 decoder plugin.  This is a very simple task which simply involves downloading the optional MP3 plugin ZIP file, and copying the included DLL file to InfraRecorder’s ”codecs” directory.  For licensing reasons with the MP3 technology, this file cannot be included with the InfraRecorder download.

Also pretty cool…InfraRecorder includes a “cdrtools” directory which contains several command-line tools for reading/writing and troubleshooting CD/DVD’s from the command line.  Since I am the Command Line Nazi, I am very happy to see this. 

I have been using InfraRecorder for about 2 weeks now and am very impressed with it.  I think I may be permanently replacing Nero with it.

Check it out here: http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

If you like it, I encourage you to send the guy a donation, or just simply help the project by getting the word out about this excellent piece of software.  Please feel free to let me know about your experiences with it.