Filezilla is pretty well known as an ftp client, but the project also includes an FTP server.

Currently available for Windows only, the server has a few advantages over the IIS ftp service:

• Security
  The Filezilla interface is not tied into the Active Directory structure. While this may make some Windows admins groan, this does eliminate one potential source of compromises and intrusions, as it means that guessing a password on the ftp service doesn’t automatically give you a password for the actual machine that it’s running on.

• Configuration
  Configuration using Filezilla’s GUI is a bit hard to do at first, but the groups method is powerful. For example, define a group whose home directory is c:\ftp\:u, and then just create a directory of the same name as the user inside the c:\ftp directory (e.g. c:\ftp\simon.collis) and you put the user in that group, and they have a bespoke home directory - and they can’t do “cd ..” to get to other people’s home directories either, which can happen with IIS if you’re not careful!

• Virtual file system
  Unlike IIS, aliases show up in directory listings by default. You can also add other directories and map them - using my C:\ftp alias as above, to create a directory called shared everyone can see, simply add it in somewhere else - let’s say its real location is d:\ftp_shared. Add that in - either to the user or the group - and alias it to c:\ftp\shared. Now that directory shows up in the listings, and can be used just as if it were real. This is my only gripe, actually - that aliases are real directory names, not virtual ones. Makes working out what the filing system will be a bit confusing.

• Bandwidth throttling
  Filezilla can limit the bandwidth used by everyone, by a group, or by a user, for upload and download. So you can have “normal” users with a smaller limit, premium users with higher limits, and an admin with no limit at all! Of course, in IIS bandwidth throttling affects your websites as well - not the way to go about it if you’re trying to hosts websites on a server where more than one person will need to ftp in and out. This won’t be an issue for everybody, of course, and I’m sure there are those IIS experts who will say “just edit the metabase and everything will be fine”. Of course it will - but there’s only one global limit for IIS, not the user-level granularity you can have with Filezilla.

Filezilla users dialog: not eye candy, just well thought-out

In conclusion, if you’re looking for an alternative to IIS’s ftp service, not only is Filezilla robust and secure (I know of at least one production site making heavy use of it on a daily basis), the price is right and the feature set is probably just what the doctor ordered!

(PS: I’m thinking about doing this every Friday - highlight a piece of free or open source software I think you’ll find useful or enjoyable. Is that a good idea or not? Let me know in the comments…)

I’ve been playing the Orange balloon game quite assiduously. Or should that be obsessively?

Yes, it should.

Anywhy… when I first signed up I thought “well, only someone who was together enough to get a balloon in the first hour will win this.” And I started 30,328 or thereabouts. So, I decided to give everybody I came across (when I was logged in, obviously) a boost. Just one, to help them out. Anyone who was behind me.

So, I started looking at everyone’s balloons. And there I was, 29,328 or so, while some of them were in the 1,000-2,000 bracket. Which meant they weren’t that far behind me. The bastards.

However… I am now about 558 in the rankings. Yes. I am in the top thousand. And with this comes some kind of enlightenment. A well-being, if you will.

I have to approve all comments here (spotted where this is going?)

Well…

Leave the tag to show your balloon and I’ll give you five boosts. Someone did it for me, so I’m spreading the love. Leave it here in the comments and you’ll get the five before I approve the comment (unless you’ve got five already).

Before you say I’m a comment pimp (which I am, that’s true), just float your balloon past me and I’ll give you them anyway, without you even getting here. So there. Two ways to get free buddy boosts.

By the way, you can’t give me any - right now, anyway. Because some kind person gave five to me. So that’s wahat I’m doing - paying it forward. Do the same, folks.

The Orange balloon race starts right now - get your balloon here! Leave me a heads up if you like… let us know how you’re doing

If you’ve never used Skype before, it’s a virtual phone service over the Internet.  It also includes instant messaging, with avatars, as well as having a huge range of plugins, from games, to MSN Messenger and even a remote control application (called RemoteX) which can be used in a similar manner to Remote Desktop or VNC.

The first main difference that strikes you between 3.8 and 4 is the main window. On version 3.8, the main Skype window was essentially forgettable if you were using it as an instant messenger program - you could open your messaging session separately, chat way, and completely ignore the main window. In version 4, by default, they’re docked into the main window, which now has a more MDI feel about it than the previous version. it takes some getting used to , but whether its easier or harder to use depends, I suppose, on what you usually use Skype for. It’s obvious, though, that they’re thinking more about video calling and trying to ensure that you don’t miss calls or chats, something that I’ve done a couple of times in the previous version. (You can actually undock conversations, which is quite nice, and presents you with almost the same conversation window as Skype 3.8).

The new right-hand pane (which I’ve shown above with the directory pane) is used for conversations, for the directory, or for just about almost anything that was previously a separate window in Skype. While it’s a tidier, nicer interface - and feels a bit less Windows 3.1 - there’s still a few things, especially extras, that open their own windows outside Skype. The good news is that they haven’t changed the extras API, so there’s no need to immediately update every extra you’ve got installed - I haven’t had any problems with them.

Still, this is beta software - and as usual with beta software, things need fixing. What’s wrong with it? Well, not much actually. They’ve started adding help text to the right-hand pane when there’s nothing else open, and that’s quite nice, but it could do with a bit more work; it’d be nice to have links through to context sensitive help. The welcome screen does a pretty fair job of explaining the new features in Skype, but as with the new right-hand pane, the text sizing needs work as on my screen it tends to overlap other text or the control buttons if you’re not full screen.

There are plenty of new features in Skype 4, but there are some missing from the beta that are in 3.8, such as the IRC chat style, contact groups, Skype Prime, and so on (see this list for more details). If you need an accessible version of Skype, stay away from this beta - presumably this is something they’re working on but haven’t got ready yet; the same’s true with the “send money” function, or the ability to view Outlook contacts in Skype, neither of which has the same level of mass appeal as accessibililty functions, but will undoubtedly be deal-breakers for some.

Would I recommend upgrading? Well, I can’t see any reason not to. The new interface takes some getting used to - my first reaction was that they had decided to try and see how hard to use they could make the new version compared to the previous - but once you get used to the fact that everything is in the same window, that the instant messaging view shows contacts at the top, instead of on the right, and lots of other little changes - it all feels fine. As well as trying it out on my laptop, I’ve already rolled it out to my production machine and am using it during work time (I actually don’t use Skype for personal reasons, only for work, as it happens).

My verdict? It’s coming along, nicely. Feels a bit slower than 3.8, but it’s likely that debug functions are turned up to 11, which is only to be expected from beta software. Beware of the functions that aren’t implemented yet, and don’t upgrade yet if any of them is a deal breaker - I’m sure most of them will be back in the finished version. But it’s worth a look, and if you do upgrade you can give them feedback and help influence how the final product looks.

Knew I’d heard it before, but the penny just dropped (as the saying goes). “Alice Where Art Thou” is the theme to the classic Ronnie Barker/David Jason sitcom “Open All Hours“.

Spaceman Spiff notes that the Bizzarotron has been reading a little low lately…