On the font page, you’ll see an interesting comparison for the traffic that has taken place on pages over the course of the past month.  For instance, when I first visited Wikirank, they had a comparison to see who is the most popular on Wikipedia among John, Paul, George or Ringo.

You can also search for whatever topic you like.  As you begin to type into the search bar, you will see a list of article pages appear in a dropdown.  Just select the page you want from the dropdown when you see the page you’re looking for.

When you are viewing the visitor statistics for a particular Wikipedia article, you can easily add new topics to compare the traffic between multiple articles.  I found it interesting that the Linux Wikipedia page is more popular than the Windows and OS X pages.

What do you think of Wikirank?

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If you want to create a conference room without your computer, you can just dial (605) 475-8515 (USA phone number) and press 0 to create a new conference room. Be sure to write down the conference room number, because anyone you want to join will need to use it to enter.

If you want to create a conference room with your computer, just visit the Gizmo5 free conference call setup page. You enter your email address into the form, and then you will be brought to a page with your conference number. You will also receive an email with your conference number.

Once you have your conference room number, just give it to those you wish to attend along with the (605) 475-8515 dial-in number. When they call the dial-in number, they will be prompted for the conference room number. They can then enter the conference room number you gave them.

That’s all there is to it, and you can do it without even signing up for an account. However, if you’re outside of the USA or you don’t have an unlimited long-distance calling plan, you will need to sign up for a Gizmo5 account if you want to use the service without having to pay long distance charges.

Just download the Gizmo5 client and sign up for a free account.  They have clients available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Once you’ve installed the Gizmo5 client, you can launch it and create a free account right from the application.

Once you’ve installed Gizmo5 and logged into your account, just dial CONFERENCE. Once you’re connected, click the Dialpad tab and then enter the conference room number.  You’ll be connected to the conference room and will be ready to chat with the others as they join.

What free conference calling services do you use? Are you aware of any other free sites to setup instant conference calls? Let us know in comments!

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According to the Microsoft Expression Web blog, the versions of Internet Explorer made available within SuperPreview will depend on which version of IE you have installed on your system:

If you’re a web developer that’s been holding off on installing IE 7 because you won’t be able to preview your sites in IE 6, you’ll no longer have to worry about making the upgrade.  You can upgrade to IE 7 and still view pages in IE 6 with SuperPreview.

When you load a page into SuperPreview, you’ll see a side-by-side comparison.  You can zoom in as far as 500% and do a near pixel-by-pixel comparison, or zoom out as far as 21%.  When you scroll, the scrolling is synchronized across browsers, so you see exactly what appears within the same coordinates at the same time.

You can also click on and drag on the rulers to place markers across the page to get an easy view on how page elements are aligned within the different browsers.  Although the free version only allows you to compare IE browsers, it does have an image comparison you can use to compare a browser screenshot.  If you have a nice image capture that allows you to take screenshots of frames within applications (such as Jing), screenshots can provide a good comparison.

According to the Webdesigner Depot story about SuperPreview, the full version will include support for other non-IE browsers (Firefox, Safari, etc.).  Webdesigner Depot also reports the application will eventually support multiple browser sizes.  The beta preview only allows you to see what sites will look like in a browser at a 1024×768 resolution.

What free tools do you use to perform cross-browser comparisons? Are you familiare with any other tools to preview sites in different versions of IE?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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CallsBlocker is a great free Blackberry call blocking software written by Fabian Heuwieser that allows you to block unwanted calls a few different ways. In the application screen, you can enter individual numbers you want to block and block numbers with certain area codes (such as 800, 888, 866, etc.). There are also options to block private, unknown, and withheld numbers.

You can also block numbers from your contact list.

And finally, you can block numbers from your call log as well.

Just visit the CallsBlocker download page, and you can send it to your BlackBerry via SMS or email. You can also download it to your PC and then transfer it to your phone with a data cable.

Although the product page states the minimum requirements are a BlackBerry Storm, Berry Reporter confirmed with Fabian that it should work on all the devices, not just the Storm. Thomas Magsaysay, the author of the Berry Reporter article confirmed first-hand that it does work on a BlackBerry Bold.

What do you think of CallsBlocker? Do you know of any other free tool to block calls on Blackberry?

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Installing Firebug on IE, Safari, Chrome or Opera

Firebug Lite makes it possible to install Firebug into any web browser! You should be able to use Firebug with Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and any other browser that supports JavaScript. Firebug Lite is written in JavaScript, so you can include it on a webpage with the following code:

<script type='text/javascript'

     src='http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js'></script>

Or even better you can use this bookmarklet:

Firebug Lite

Firebug Lite provides you with the same inspections capability that regular Firebug does. You can click the Inspect button and hover over sections of the page to view the computed style and DOM properties for the tag selected.

The Inspect button functionality does seem to have some issues, so another way to inspect elements is to navigate the HTML tree. To do that, click the + signs on the tree view to expand the HTML, and when you see the element you want to inspect, click on the line of code for it in the HTML. On the right side, you can view the computed style and the DOM (Document Object Model) properties for the element.

Firebug Lite also has the JavaScript console, which allows you to execute JavaScript. You can write one line at a time, or in the expanded view you can write many lines at once and then run the code.

Although you cannot edit the CSS for the highlighted element, Firebug Lite does provide a mechanism for editing CSS. It is somewhat of a “CSS console” for lack of a better term, where you can write your own CSS code and see what the results will look like.

Of course, with a name like Firebug Lite you can’t expect it to have all of the features of Firebug. Unfortunately, it does not include any JavaScript debugging (I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to write a JavaScript debugger in Javascript). Unfortunately, you’re still stuck with whatever JavaScript debugging tools you can find for your browser. It does at least provide you with the convenience of being able to easily view the code for script files that were loaded in the page.

Firebug Lite also lacks the layout features in regular Firebug, where it shows you the coordinates for the element being inspected, as well as the padding, border size, and margins.

All in all it is better to have Firebug Lite for other browsers than no Firebug at all. If you are trying to debug layout and viewing issues in other browsers, it is definitely a nice tool to try out.

Have you ever used Firebug Lite? Did you use Firebug on IE, Safari, Chrome or Opera before? If so, what are your favorite features?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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You can download LEGO Digital Designer for both Mac OS X and Windows. When you start it up, you’ll see that you have the option to build virtual lego designs using factory, mindstorms, or creator. For each of the three options, you can choose to use a starter design, free build from scratch, or open a model you’ve previously saved.

To start designing, you just select bricks from the brick palette and start placing them down on the surface with your mouse. The bricks are grouped together by type, so you can expand a group and then select the type and color of brick you want to use. Then just place it wherever you would like.

Placing the bricks can be a little tricky at times. Sometimes the bricks just don’t seem to go where you want them to go. To help get things into the right place, you can move the view around with the right mouse button.

Just press and hold down the right mouse button, and then move the mouse around to rotate the view. If the design has fallen off the screen after you’ve rotated it, you can hold the shift key down while you also hold down the right mouse button. This allows you to move the entire viewport up, down, left, and right.

There are a number of selection tools available in the toolbox.

• Single Selection tool – Select a single brick at a time
• Multiple Selection tool – Select multiple bricks at a time
• Connected Selection tool – Select a single brick, and all bricks connected to it will be selected as well
• Color Selection tool – Select all bricks of the same color of the brick selected
• Shape Selection tool – Select all bricks that have the same shape of the brick selected
• Color and Shape Selection tool – Select bricks that are the same color and shape of the brick selected

There is also a LEGO Factory Gallery, where you can see designs that others have made and uploaded. You can download the designs and customize them any way you want. All of the designs in the gallery are free to download.

Download the LEGO Digital Designer to build virtual legos today, and simulate all your childhood memories!

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First of all, you will of course need an SSH server running somewhere. Linux and OS X come with SSH servers, but there are also SSH servers available for Windows. freeSSHd is a nice free SSH server for Windows. It is a quick and easy installation and relatively easy to configure as well. You will of course need administrator privileges on the machine you install it onto.

Since you will be accessing your SSH server remotely, if it is behind a firewall or router you will have to make sure that port 22 (the default SSH port) is properly forwarded to it. Most routers have the ability to forward ports to individual machines on the local network. You’ll have to refer to the instructions for your router/firewall on how to do this.

Once you have your SSH server configured so that you can connect to it from any Internet connection, you’ll of course need a client to connect to it. Linux and OS X both have SSH clients built-in.  If you’re on Windows, the client of choice is PuTTY. I will provide instructions on tunneling with PuTTY, but you can certainly use other clients as well.

First, specify the address of your SSH server in the Session section. Select SSH for the Connection type and enter 22 for the Port (or whatever external internet port you are using to connect to your SSH server).

Next, go to Connection > SSH > Tunnels. There are three types of tunnels you can set up:

• Dynamic - This acts as a SOCKS proxy that can be used to tunnel traffic through the network where the SSH server resides.  You can then configure applications that support SOCKS proxies (such as a web browser) to take advantage of it. I’ll demonstrate how to set up Firefox to work through a dynamic tunnel.
• Local - A local tunnel will allow you to connect to the specified port on a machine residing on the same network as the SSH server.  One useful example that I will show you is how to connect to a Windows computer running Remote Desktop.
• Remote - As the name somewhat implies, this is the reverse of a local tunnel.  You are probably less likely to use this, but it would allow machines on the SSH server network to access a machine and port on the network where your SSH client resides.  I won’t go through any examples on setting up a remote port in this article.

So in the example I’m going to provide, we will say the home network has two computers. One is a Linux box running the SSH server and the other is a Windows box with Remote Desktop enabled. We want to set up two tunnels: a dynamic tunnel and a local tunnel to connect to the Windows machine via Remote desktop.

Let’s first set up a dynamic tunnel for port 1080. The port you use for a dynamic tunnel is actually arbitrary, but since port 1080 is often used for SOCKS proxies that’s what we’ll use. Type 1080 in the Source port field, select Dynamic as the port type, and then click the Add button.

Next, let’s set up the local tunnel for the computer on the network running Windows Remote Desktop.  Let’s say the local IP addresses on the LAN where the SSH server resides are 192.168.1.xxx addresses.  The Windows machine has a local IP of 192.168.1.100. Enter 3390 for the Source port, 192.168.1.100:3389 for the Destination, select Local for the port type, and then click the Add button. You’ll see later why I’ve configured the source port to be different than the destination.

Once you have everything configured for the connection, go back to the Session section and save your connection. Then click Open and log into your Linux box with your credentials as you normally would.

Now you have to configure your applications to use the tunnels you have set up.  Let’s say you want to do your web browsing through the dynamic tunnel we set up. This is actually an extremely useful way to take advantage of SSH.

You may be on a network with some sort of firewall or content filtering that you wish to bypass. If you are able to get out on port 22 (or any other port, you’ll just have to set up your SSH server accordingly), then you’ll be able to surf wherever you want without issue through the dynamic tunnel.

It is also useful if you are surfing on a network where you may be concerned about others observing your traffic. Perhaps you are connecting from a hotel, a client site, or from work (you didn’t learn that from me) and you do not want others monitoring your traffic.

The best choice is to use Firefox, because Firefox allows you to configure the browser to also send DNS requests through the proxy. If you use Internet Explorer, your DNS requests are still made via the local network you connect from and thus can still be monitored. So Firefox would be the preferred browser if you wish to maintain privacy on the network you are connecting from.

To set up Firefox to use the dynamic tunnel as a SOCKS proxy, go to the Firefox Options > Advanced > Network and click the Settings… button.  In the settings page, click Manual proxy configuration, enter localhost for the SOCKS Host, and 1080 for the Port.

We’re not quite done. We still need to configure Firefox to send DNS requests to the SOCKS proxy as well.  To do this, enter about:config in the navigation bar in Firefox. You may get a prompt asking you if you know what you’re doing. Assure Firefox that you know what you’re doing and proceed.

Enter socks_remote_dns for the Filter and press enter. You should see a single option that says network.proxy.socks_remote_dns. If it says false for the Value, double-click on it so that it says true. You’re now all set. You should be able to surf the web through your new secure dynamic tunnel!

Fortunately, connecting to our Windows Remote Desktop machine is much easier. You just launch the Remote Desktop Client and enter localhost:3390 for the machine address. That’s all there is to it!

The reason we set up the source port to 3390 is because the Remote Desktop Client will not allow you to connect to the default remote desktop port (3389) on the local machine. So that’s why we used 3390 instead (we could have used any port, I just use 3390 because it’s easy for me to remember).

The source port you use for setting up the tunnels is arbitrary. We could have used 1234 instead of 3390 if we wanted to, as long as nothing is running on the local machine at port 1234. What is not arbitrary is what you use on the destination IP and port. For that you will need to use the proper IP address and port for the service you wish to connect to.

You can set up tunnel for any service on any IP anywhere. You’ll just need to set up the program to connect to localhost on the source port you set up for the tunnel. It’s a pretty nifty way to connect to stuff you may not be able to otherwise, due firewall issues you may encounter. All you need is a single port to get to your SSH server, and it of course has to be running on that port.

Do you use SSH tunnels? What sorts of cool things do you use them for?

Photo Credit: kreg.steppe

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Convert video to animated gif

To convert a video to an animated gif, you first need to make sure that you make the video as short as possible. You can do this with one of many online video editing tools or with Windows Movie Maker (if you are on Windows of course).  According to gifninja, the video file has to be about 4 seconds long, so you should try to shorten it to about that length.

Once you’ve edited your movie and cut it down to size, visit the page to convert your video to gif. Click the Browse button, navigate to where your video file is, and select it. If you wish, you can make your picture available to the public and available to be rated. Then just click on make my gif!

Make animated gifs from images

If you have a series of images you wish to animate, you can make an animated gif from images. You can upload the files individually (up to five) or you can zip them up and upload them in a single file. If you choose to upload them as a zip, you will have to append numbers to the filenames in the sequence of the animation (car1.jpg, car2.jpg, car3.jpg, etc…).

Selecting the file(s) to upload is very much the same as uploading a video. However, there is an additional option to set the speed of the animation. There is a preview of an animated dog that demonstrates the selected speed. But don’t worry, if you’re not happy with the speed of the animation after you’ve uploaded it, you can adjust it later.

After you click the make my gif! button, you are taken to a preview page.  The preview page allows you to keep the image as it is, adjust the speed, or start all over again.  Once you have the animation set to the desired speed, click Yes – it’s fantastic! to proceed to the next step.

After you’ve selected the desired speed for your animation, you select the filename for your animated gif.  Again, you can make the image publicly available if you wish.  You can also enter the filename for the image as well as tags to help other people find your image.  Once you have everything set the way you want, click the Save gif button.

gifninja also has a cool feature to split animated images into separate images.  Just upload the file and click the split my gif! button.  The individual images will appear right on the page.  You can also download all the images at once with a zip file generated by gifninja.

gifninja could hardly make it easier to create animated gifs online. What other free online and offline tools do you use to create animated gifs?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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TrayIt is only about a 300k download and only about 600k installed. There’s no installer, you just download the zip and extract the contents to wherever you want to “install” it.

Since there’s no need to really install TrayIt!, it also makes a great portable app. Just unzip the contents to your portable USB drive and you’re ready to launch it. When you first launch TrayIt!, you’ll see a list of all the programs that are on your task bar.

There are a few ways minimize programs that are on the taskbar into the system tray. If you only want to minimize a program to the system tray, the quickest and easiest way to do that is to just hold the Shift key while you click the minimize button. To restore the window, you can just double-click the tray icon.

There are two ways to put a program into the system tray without minimizing it at the same time.  You can either right-click on the minimize button in on program window you want to put in the tray and select Place in System Tray, or you can select the program in the TrayIt! program list and click the Place in System Tray button.

When you place an app into the system tray in this manner, you will see it both in the taskbar as well as the system tray.  TrayIt! creates a profile for the application. You can edit the profile to change the way the application will interact with the taskbar and system tray. To edit the profile, select the application in the TrayIt! list and click the Edit Current Profile button.

You’ll see that you can perform many customizations for the application. A few of note:

• Basic tab > Startup section > Minimize window on creation / when TrayIt! is started
• More tab > Application section > Hide application from the taskbar all the time, keep tray icon only
• Advanced tab > Startup section > Do not create Tray Icon – minimize and hide window completely

These options allow you to control the way the applicaiton interacts with the taskbar and system tray when it is launched.  If you have programs that just sit in the background and don’t require any interaction, you will probably want to take advantage of some of these options.

TrayIt! also has some application options you might want to take a look at as well. To change the TrayIt! options, you can click the Modify Application Options in the TrayIt! window. Two options I like in particular are creating a tray icon for TrayIt! and using single-clicks for the tray icons.

Another important thing to mention is that when you close TrayIt! with the X in the upper right corner (like you would any other application), it still keeps running in the background. If you don’t have the task tray enabled for it, you can still get back to TrayIt! by right-clicking on the minimize button for any program you are running, and click on TrayIt! Application ….

To actually exit TrayIt!, you’ll have to click on File > Exit or click on File > Uninstall.  What’s the difference?  Exit closes TrayIt! but it maintains your settings in the Windows registry. The Uninstall option will exit TrayIt! and also remove all the options from the Windows registry. This is a useful feature if you are using TrayIt! as a portable application and you don’t want to keep the settings in the registry.

What do you think of TrayIt!? Do you use any other cool features that weren’t mentioned in the article?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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But what about receiving Google Reader shared items from individuals that are not your friends, but still share your interests? This is quite possible to do and it is easier than you might think. All you have to do is subscribe to their Google Reader shared items RSS feed! The only trick is finding the URL for that shared items feed.

If you like Robert Scoble and you would like to receive his reader shared items, you may have a hard time trying to get added to his contact list. I’m sure he gets a lot of email, and you would probably get lost in the noise. However, he does make it very easy for you to receive his shared items, because he has the link to his shared items feed posted right on his blog. Just subscribe to it in Google Reader, and you’ll receive his shared items.

So what about people that don’t have their shared items linked right on their homepage or blog?  The next place to look would be on FriendFeed. Google Reader is one of the many supported services on FriendFeed. If you want to subscribe to someone’s shared items and they are on FriendFeed, they may have added their shared items to their FriendFeed account. If so, then you are in luck!

Let’s say you’re interested in the same kind of things that Chris Brogan is interested in. Just use the FriendFeed find/invite search and search for Chris Brogan. When you hover over his picture, you’ll see the services he has hooked into FriendFeed. Google Reader shared items just so happens to be one of them. You can then right-click on the Google Reader item, copy the URL to the clipboard, and then put it into Google Reader to subscribe.

You have to right-click and copy to the clipboard, because if you left-click on it, it will display his reader items within FriendFeed. Alternatively you can left-click on the reader icon to view his Google Reader items in FriendFeed, and subsequently left-click the link at the top that says Chris’s profile on Google Reader.

So what if the person you want to follow doesn’t have their Google Reader shared items feed on their blog or FriendFeed? MyBlogLog would be the next place I would check.  Let’s say you want to find out what sort of cool things Mike Fruchter is reading and sharing.  Just visit his MyBlogLog page, and there you will see the link to his Google Reader shared items feed.

Unfortunately this is only a one-way street. When you subscribe to someone’s Google Reader shared items feed they will be unaware you have done so and they will not have access to see your shared items.  If you want them to see your Google Reader shared items, you’ll probably have to do something extraordinary to have them befriend you.  Writing an article on a popular blog and linking to their blog might be one way to do it. 

Do you use Google Reader shared items to dispense and receive news you are interested in?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Images that are rendered using vector graphics will scale to any size and still maintain smooth edges. This is ideal for dealing with things such as fonts and logos. Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor that you can use to convert raster images to vector graphic images.

I will demonstrate how to use Inkscape to convert the Inkscape logo above into an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) image. SVG is a vector graphics file format.

First of all you will need to download Inkscape and install it. It’s available for Mac OS X and Windows, and of course with the source you can compile it on Linux and other platforms as well.

Once you’ve installed Inkscape, launch it and open the raster image you want to convert. In this example, I’ve opened the inkscape-logo.png file. You can see from the screenshot that the edges are not smooth. Converting it to an SVG file will allow us to scale it to any size, and maintain the smooth edges.

Select the entire image by navigating to Edit > Select All in the Inkscape menu or by pressing Ctrl-A on your keyboard. Then go to Path > Trace Bitmap - or press Shift-Alt-B on your keyboard. In the trace bitmap dialog, select Colors as the mode and be sure that Smooth is unchecked.

Click the OK button and the conversion will take place but the dialog box will be on the screen. Close the dialog box by clicking the X in the upper right corner. Next you have to get rid of the original image, which is lying beneath the trace you just performed. To view the original, go to Object > Lower to Bottom or press the End key on your keyboard.

Now the original jagged looking image should be on top. Click on it to select it and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. Now you should see the nice and pretty vector image with smooth edges. Next, save the file by navigating to File > Save As… Give the file a new name, and be sure that the file type in the bottom right is Inkscape SVG.  The image below was created from the SVG file I made.

When you do use your SVG images in web pages, you’ll want to convert them from SVG back to a raster image, just as I did in the image above. To do this, just go to File > Export Bitmap… Not all browsers support SVG images, so you’re better off exporting SVGs to bitmaps. This way you will have your nice image and also be able to use it online.

Using SVGs makes a big difference when you scale the images to be much larger than the originals.  Wikimedia Commons actually has a better SVG image for the Inkscape logo than I made. The Wikimedia Foundation has made an effort to make most diagrams and logos available as SVG files, to allow them to be used at higher resolutions without degrading the original content.

Are you aware of any other free tools that can convert raster images to vector graphics?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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The CleVR FAQ recommends trying to overlap about 25% of the frame, but also states that their stitcher is quite forgiving. It is also recommended that you use a tripod or monopod to ensure a high-quality panoramic photograph with few parallax errors.  Be sure that you’ve taken your pictures side-by-side because CleVR will only stitch photos that are taken in this manner.

To use the stitcher, you will first have to sign up for a free CleVR account. Once you’ve logged into your new account you can use the photo stitcher. When you visit the stitcher page, you’ll see a prompt to click to install the stitcher.

You’ll have to install Adobe Air if you don’t already have it, as the CleVR stitcher is an Adobe Air application. Once you’ve installed the app, you’re ready to launch and stitch your photos together.

The CleVR stitcher couldn’t make stitching any easier. In three simple steps, you can stitch a photo: select your images, sort them in order, and click the stitch button. The photos you see in the screenshot below are from Hamed Saber’s beautiful Tehran panorama photo.

To demonstrate the stitcher, I took Hamed’s photo and split it into five separate photos and then stitched them back together with the CleVR stitcher. Below is my stitched version of the photo. There is one parallax error that I noticed in the left half of the photo, so the stitcher obviously isn’t perfect.

Alternatives to CleVR

Hugin is a completely free and open source program to stitch panoramic photos together. It is essentially a front-end GUI for a set of open source panorama tools. The panorama tools are command-line programs that do all of the magic behind the scenes, such as selecting control points (points that are shared among photographs), blending color and brightness, etc.

Here are a few other free photo stitching programs:

• Autostitch (this is what Hamed used for his Tehran panorama)
• PTgui
• PTAssembler

One thing I like about Hugin and the other photo stitchers is that, unlike CleVR, they do not require the photos to be taken side-by-side.  They will stitch together a grid of photos instead of having to place them all in a line.

What free programs have you used to stitch photos together? Share with us in comments!

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Downloading virtual disk images is probably the quickest and easiest way to test out a new operating system on VirtualBox.  Downloading and using a virtual disk image is the equivalent of installing a new physical hard drive into a computer, with the hard drive already having the operating system on it.

If you have two computers with identical underlying hardware, it should theoretically be possible to move the hard drive from one to the other.  That is exactly what you are doing when you download and use a virtual disk image on VirtualBox.  This is because a VirtualBox system on one computer is essentially identical to a VirtualBox system on another.

There is a website called VirtualBoxImages that has a number of free virtual disk images for free operating systems available to download.  You can simply download the virtual disk images, set up your virtual machine to use them, power up the virtual machine, and you’re all set!

There are more detailed instructions on VirtualBoxImages for using the VDIs.  The instructions on that page describe how to install their Puppy Linux VDI, but the steps are the same for other operating systems as well.  You will just use a different VDI file, rather than the one for Puppy Linux.  VirtualBoxImages has a number of free virtual disk images available, including:

• Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha 4
• Xubuntu 9.04 Alpha 4
• Debian 5.0 RC2
• ReactOS 0.3.8
• OzOs 0.9 Desktop
• PC/OS Open32 Desktop 2009

They also have some disk images that are labeled as “premium downloads” where you pay a nominal fee to download them.  I’m not sure why they’ve decided to make some VDIs available for free and they require you to pay for others.  Some of the premium VDIs available are:

• OpenSolaris 2008.11 VDI
• openSUSE 11.1 Gnome VDI (Release)
• openSUSE 11.1 KDE (Release)
• Fedora 10
• CentOS 4.7 Server

Regardless of whether VirtualBoxImages has them labeled as premium or not, all of the VDIs they have for download are for free operating systems.  You may not be able to find the VDIs you want for free, but you can still download the installation media and install the operating systems yourself.

Although doing so involves more work on your part since you need to run the full installation, it allows you to avoid the cost of paying for one of the premium VDIs.  Here are some links for the installation disks:

• OpenSolaris 2008.11
• openSUSE 11.1
• Fedora Core 10
• CentOS 5

Once you download the installation disk images, the installation process is very much the same as installing Windows 7 onto VirtualBox.  You’ll just be using different file names for the installation disk images, and the process for installing the VirtualBox guest additions will be slightly different.

Have you installed any of these operating systems on VirtualBox?  Have you found .torrent links for any of VirtualBoxImage’s premium VDIs?  If so, please do share them with us!  Do not share .torrent files for operating systems that are not free.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Of course the first thing you will probably notice it is lacking is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing mode. I told you it was for HTML purists! It does offer a preview mode, but it is view-only. If you consider a visual editor to be a must-have, then w.bloggar may not be for you.

w.bloggar does offer HTML syntax highlighting, which is something that Windows Live Writer does not have.

Uploading/Inserting images is easy and it all happens in just two clicks. You just click the upload file button

and then select whether you want to post an image or a link to download the file being uploaded. You can also edit the tag options before inserting the HTML.

The fact that it uploads images directly to the blog as you are writing the post makes it much easier to work with the HTML. It also speeds up the final article posting, since the images are already on the blog.

w.bloggar supports many more web services and blogging platforms than Live Writer. Here is a list of the web services supported:

• Blogger
• MSN Spaces
• TypePad
• BigBlogTool
• Blogalia
• TheBlog
• Blog-City
• EraBlog.NET
• Upsaid
• UBlog
• SquareSpace
• BlogWare
• DearDiary.Net

As well as a number of different blogging platforms and content management systems:

• MovableType
• Nucleus
• b2
• WordPress
• b2 evolution
• Blog:CMS
• .Text
• BlogWorks XML
• Drupal
• LiveJournal
• pMachine
• Xoops
• E-Xoops
• PostNuke
• blojsom
• Roller Weblogger
• Domino
• YACS
• Xaraya

Given the comprehensive list, the chances are quite good that your blogging platform is supported. w.bloggar is a very small app, so it loads very fast and is ideal for using on portable drives. It is very easy to use, and will integrate very well and quickly with your blog. If you prefer to work with HTML directly when writing for your blog, you’ll definitely want to take a look at it.

What do you think of w.bloggar? Are you aware of any other good portable blogging tool we should know about?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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TaxACT offers you the choices for filing your federal return. You can either do it online or with a free downloadable version. To file tax return online, just visit TaxACT and click the Start Free Return button.

If you would rather download the program and do it locally on your computer, you can visit the TaxACT 2008 software page. The downloadable version is only available for Windows, so if you are on OS X or Linux you’ll have to use the online version. The downloadable version is about a 12.6MB download.

The online and downloadable versions of TaxACT work very similarly. Both will go through a simple, albeit lengthy interview process. US tax forms tend to read much like computer programming languages, but TaxACT simplifies the process by asking simple questions in plain English.

If you do happen to be a computer programmer or perhaps you still prefer to do things the old fashioned way, you can directly input information into the actual tax forms with the downloadable version.  Just click on the Forms button just below the menu bar. You’ll see a list of every tax form in a tree on the left side, and you can select which ever one you want to use.

The online version also has a forms button, but it works a little differently.  When you click the Forms List button on the online version, you’ll see a tree similar to what you see in the downloadable version.  Once you select a form, you have the option to print it or review it.  When you click Review, TaxACT online takes you to the point in the interview that pertains to that particular tax form.

Both the downloadable and online versions offer a free e-File option. e-File is a safe, fast, and easy way to file your tax return. I’ve been doing it pretty much as long as it has been offered and have since never done it any other way.  Using e-File and requesting your refund via direct deposit is the fastest way to get your refund.

If you prefer not to e-File, you can simply print out the tax forms and mail them in.  One thing I find somewhat odd is that the free downloadable version will allow you to print the return, but it will not output to a PDF (the downloadable pay versions will output to PDF).  However, the online version generates a PDF for you to print out.  If you want a PDF of your return and you’re using the free downloadable version, you can use PDF Creator or some other cool PDF tools to save your return to a PDF.

TaxACT also offers pay versions (Deluxe for $9.95 and Ultimate for $16.95).  If you want to use it to file your state return as well, you’ll have to purchase the Ultimate version.  If you’re like me and are fortunate enough to live in a state without state income taxes, you don’t have to worry about filing a state return.

So what’s the catch?  Well, when you’re ready to file your federal return next year, TaxACT will offer you the convenience of importing your info from the previous year’s return. I used TaxACT for free the first year I used it.  However, in subsequent years my apathy for doing my taxes got the best of me and I have since been paying to import my info from the prior years.

TaxACT is a great and simple way to do your own taxes for free. What free software do you use to fill your tax return?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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You may have heard of Celestia, a great program that lets you leave planet Earth and explore space from beyond. Stellarium is similar to Celestia in some ways, but it allows you to view and explore the night sky exactly as it would appear from any location on Earth. Like Celestia, it is also available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

When you first launch Stellarium, you’ll find that you are looking at the sky as it appears in Paris, France. If you are located in Paris, then you’re all set. However, chances are that you are not. Fortunately, changing your location is easy.

You can either press the Location window button in the menu bar on the left side of the screen, or press the F6 key. You’ll then see the location window.  You can select your location in a few different ways.

Once in the location window, you can select your location by clicking on the map, searching for your location, or entering your location co-ordinates.  If you have a decimal latitude/longitude for your location, you will have to convert your location to degrees, minutes, and seconds.  If you have entered your exact co-ordinates, select a name for your location and click the Add to list button. You may also want to click the Use as default checkbox.

If you’re using this during the day, you’ll probably want to advance the time of day to nighttime.  There are buttons to navigate through time on the right side of the bottom navigation bar.  Just click the Increase time speed button (or press L on your keyboard) a few times to get things moving.  Then click the Set normal time rate button (or press K on your keyboard).

Another way to move through time is to jump to a particular date and time rather than fast forwarding or rewinding.  Click the Date/time window button in the left navigation bar (or press the F5 key on your keyboard).  You can use this feature to advance to certain days when you know a celestial event is taking place that is visible from the surface of Earth.

On the left side of the bottom navigation bar, you’ll see options for displaying constellations.  You can enable Constellation lines (or C on the keyboard), Constellation labels (or V on the keyboard), and enable Constellation art (or R on the keyboard).

You can also click on objects in the sky to find out what they are.  If there is a certain object you wish to view but are having trouble locating it, just hit ctrl-F on your keyboard and enter the name of the object you want to find.  You can search for stars, planets, or constellations.

You may sometimes find that objects you find with the search function are not always visible, because they are obstructed by the Earth.  If this does happen, you can disable the display of the ground.  There is an option to do this in the bottom navigation bar, or you can press the G key on the keyboard.

Navigating the sky is easy.  Just click and drag with your mouse, to move around or use the arrow keys on your keyboard.  Your mouse wheel allows you to zoom in and out (or press the PgUp/PgDown keys on your keyboard).  You can zoom in on the selected object by pressing the / key on your keyboard.  If you want to restore the zoom to normal, press the \ key.  If you want help on the navigation keys, you can press the F1 key on your keyboard.

Stellarium and Celestia are great programs for exploring space and the night sky.  Do use any other free programs to learn about celestial bodies and constellations?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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VirtualBox is a free and open source virtualization program. Essentially, it is like having a complete and separate computer within your computer. You can install any operating system on it, including Windows 7. The latest version of VirtualBox (2.1.2) has support for Windows 7, which makes it very easy and convenient to install.

First, you’ll want to download VirtualBox and install it. VirtualBox is available for multiple platforms: Windows, OS X, Linux, and Solaris. During the installation on a Windows system, you may receive a warning that untested software is being installed. Be sure to click continue when those boxes appear, as essential components for VirtualBox to function properly are being installed.

You’ll also need to download the Windows 7 beta. It is a large file, so it may take quite a while to download depending on your connection. The file you will download is a CD disk image. Fortunately, since you’re going to use it on a virtual machine, you won’t have to actually burn it to a CD to use it.

Once you have VirtualBox installed and you have the Windows 7 beta CD image, you’re ready to create your virtual machine amd install Windows 7 beta. Launch VirtualBox and create a new machine. Be sure to select Windows 7 as your operating system.

Click Next. On the following screen you will select how much memory you would like the virtual machine to have. I believe the minimum requirement for Windows 7 is 1GB of RAM, so be sure to set it to at least 1024MB.

Click Next. On the following screen you will create a new virtual drive for the system. I would recommend using the default option of a Dynamically expanding storage. This way you won’t use any more disk space (on your main system) than necessary. Since you’re using a dynamically expanding drive, the size of the disk is somewhat arbitrary. You just want to be sure not to make it too small, so set it to 100GB to be safe.

Once you’re done creating the virtual machine, you’ll need to configure it to use the Windows 7 disk image you downloaded. Select your virtual machine, click Settings, and navigate to the CD/DVD-ROM section. Check the Mount CD/DVD Drive checkbox and click the ISO Image File radio button. Then click the folder icon and then browse to where you saved your ISO image and select it.

If you have a multi-core processor, there’s an option you’ll want to enable to speed things up on the virtual machine.  Go to the General section and on the Advanced tab enable the Enable VT-x/AMD-V checkbox. This allows VirtualBox to take advantage of machine virtualization capabilities of your processor, and improves the performance of the virtual machine.

You may also want to add sound to the virtual machine as well. Go to the Audio tab, and click the Enable Audio checkbox and select Windows DirectSound for the Host Audio Driver. Once you have the machine configured, click the Start button to turn on the virtual machine.

You should see the Windows 7 installation begin. Just follow all the prompts and install Windows. If you need to get back to your main computer at any time, the hotkey to release control of the virtual machine is the Ctrl key on the right side of your keyboard.

Once you’ve installed Windows 7, you can install the guest additions. The guest additions will provide better video and audio support to the virtual machine. The guest additions also allow you to better integrate the virtual machine with your main system.

To install the guest additions, press the right Ctrl key on your keyboard, go to the Devices menu and select Install Guest Additions…

During the guest additions installation, when prompted if you would like to install drivers, click the Install button. Once you’ve installed the guest additions, reboot the virtual machine. Upon rebooting, all of the virtual devices should be working.

Now that you have the guest additions installed, you will be able to share the clipboard, access to files on the main system, and move the cursor seamlessly in and out of the virtual machine. You can press the Right Ctrl-F and see the virtual machine full screen. What a pretty fish!

Have you tried Windows 7 with other free virtualization programs? Did you try to install Windows 7 as a virtual machine with Virtualbox? If so, let us know which ones and what sort of hacks were required to get it to work.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Public-key cryptography makes use of public and private key pairs for encrypting and decrypting data. Anyone can encrypt a message with a public key, but only the private key can be used to decrypt it. NEVER give your private key to anyone else. DO give your public key to others if you wish for them to send you encrypted messages.

In order for you to encrypt Gmail email and send encrypted messages to others, you must use the recipients’ public keys so that they will be able to decrypt the messages. If you are interested in establishing secure email communications with others, you will want to direct them to this article if they are unfamiliar with PGP.

Before installing the FireGPG addon, you will first need to download the proper GnuPG binary for your operating system and install it. After you’ve downloaded and installed GnuPG, you can then download and install FireGPG. Once you’ve installed both, launch Firefox and log into Gmail.

First, you will need to import your friends’ public keys. You can do this with the FireGPG Key Manager.  You can launch the key manager from the Firefox menu bar if you navigate to Tools > FireGPG > Key manager.

The easiest option is to just import from a key server, if you friend has uploaded his public. Let’s say his email address is foo@bar.com. In a real search, you would only get one result (more if your friend has created more than one public key), but here’s what the search results for foo@bar.com looks like:

Once you’ve imported your friend’s key, you can send him an encrypted message.  You should probably also generate your own public key and upload it to the server, so that he will be able to respond to you with encrypted messages as well.

You can create your own public/private key pair by clicking the New key button in the Key manager. Enter all of the pertinent information, and choose a strong password. Choose something you can remember without writing it down, but not something that someone else would be able to figure out. Including numbers and symbols is a good idea as well.

Once you have your friend’s public key and your own public/private key, you are ready to send an encrypted message. Visit Gmail, compose a message as you would normally, and before you submit it, be sure the lock image is colored (not gray). If it is gray, click the Encrypt link to enable it.

Although it isn’t required, it is a good idea to sign the message as well. Your friend can verify the message came from you by verifying your signed message with your public key. A valid signature can only be sent with a private key and verified with the corresponding public key.

Click Send.  If you chose to sign the message, you will be prompted to provide the password for your private key. Your friend will receive your message and should be able to decrypt it with his private key and password.

Please note that while you are composing a message, if it is autosaved it will be placed onto Google’s servers. While residing there, it will not be encrypted.  Your messages will not be encrypted if they are autosaved while you are composing them.

If this concerns you for any reason and you want to take extra precautions, there is an option in FireGPG to disable Gmail’s autosave feature.  From the Firefox menu bar, navigate to Tools > FireGPG > Options and go to the Gmail tab.

Alternatively, if you do not want to disable autosave you can use FireGPG’s text editor to compose the message. After composing the message in the text editor, you can then sign, encrypt, save it to the clipboard, and paste it into the Gmail message composition box.

What do you think of FireGPG? What other tools do you use for sending encrypted emails with Gmail?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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There is a hack available to allow allow multiple remote desktop connections on Vista machine, and it will also enable Remote Desktop Connections in Vista Home Premium.

Disclaimer: Use this hack at your own risk. Modifying Windows system files can cause unexpected results. You should only try this hack if you know what you are doing or if you are willing to break your configuration. If you mess up your Windows configuration, MakeUseOf will not accept any legal liability whatsoever. It is highly recommended that you backup your files before proceeding.

The hack involves replacing the default Remote Desktop Connection program (termsrv.dll) with a hacked one. First, you need to download the hacked file here. Extract the contents of the file somewhere on your PC. There are several batch files (.bat) that will install it, depending on which version of Vista you are running: Business.bat, premium.bat, or Ultimate.bat.

Run the correct batch file, according to what version of Vista you have. You can try using the premium.bat version on Home Basic, but I haven’t verified that it works on basic. Once again, use at your own risk! If you have any problems running the batch file, boot into safe mode to run it.

Firewall Configuration for Vista Home Premium

Although the batch file is supposed to configure the firewall if you are installing it on Home Premium, it does not work properly. Here is how to configure your firewall to allow Remote Desktop connections:

• Open the Control Panel
• If you are in the regular control panel view, click on Allow a program through Windows Firewall under the Security section



• If you are in classic view, click on Windows Firewall and then click on Allow a program through Windows Firewall



• Click the Add Port button



• For the new port enter Remote Desktop Connection for the Name and 3389 for the Port number and click OK
• Click OK again to save the firewall settings.

You should now be all set to run Remote Desktop with concurrent connections.  If you are already using Remote Desktop Connections with Business or Ultimate, then you are probably familiar with using the Remote Desktop client.

Using the Remote Desktop Client

If you’re not familiar with Remote Desktop or you are on one of the Home editions and you’ve never used Remote Desktop before:

• Start up Windows on another computer.
• Navigate to Start > Programs > Accessories > Remote Desktop Connection



• Enter the name of the Vista computer and then click Connect.
• Enter your login credentials when prompted for the username and password of the Vista computer.
• You should now be remotely logged into your computer!

If you have any problems getting this to work, there are instructions available on how to install remote desktop concurrent sessions manually. It is also possible to set up concurrent Remote Desktop connections on Windows XP. The process is very much the same for XP, in that you should download a patched termsrv.dll and install it to the system.

Although we do not endorse modification of Windows system files, if you come across any issues installing this hack, let us know and we will do what we can to help. Are you aware of any other ways to allow multiple remote desktop connections? Let us know in comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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To make Remote Desktop a portable app, you will need to copy four files from your Windows system.  Two of them, mstc.exe and mstscax.dll are located in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory.

The other two, mstsc.exe.mui and mstscax.dll.mui, are located in a subdirectory within C:\WINDOWS\system32. The name of the subdirectory will depend on the language and locale of the Windows system you are using. If your language is English and you are in the USA, they will be located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\en-us.

When you copy the files to your drive, you will want to replicate this structure. Let’s say you are in the USA, your portable drive is Y:, and your portable apps reside in Y:\PortableApps. You can create a new Folder in PortableApps called Y:\PortableApps\RemoteDesktop

Within the RemoteDesktop directory, you would create a subdirectory with your locale. If you have an English installation in the USA, create a subdirectory called en-us. Then copy mstsc.exe and mstscax.dll into RemoteDesktop and mstsc.exe.mui, and mstscax.dll.mui into en-us.

That’s all there is to it!  Now you can take portable Remote Desktop client on the road with you. I prefer Remote Desktop to VNC, because I find it to be faster at higher color depths.

What portable remote control program(s) do you use?

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During the installation you will be prompted if you wish to use the recovery console to repair a Windows installation. The recovery console is rather limited in its use, so just press the Enter key to proceed with the installation as you would normally.

Press F8 to continue past the Licensing Agreement.

The next screen should display a prompt asking you if you wish to repair an existing installation.  Select your Windows installation (most likely it is the only one) and press R.

This will begin the repair and reinstallation of Windows. The installation will copy files to the hard drive, reboot the system, and then proceed just like a normal installation. Follow the prompts just as you normally would any normal Windows installation.

When the installation completes, you should still be able to access all of your documents and installed programs.

Full Windows Reinstall Without Loosing Data and Programs

I personally prefer to perform a full clean reinstallation of Windows. With the clean install, the hard drive is formatted and programs are reinstalled. If you want to use this method, you can use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (AKA FAST).

To use FAST, you first have to run it from the old Windows installation. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.

Tell FAST that you are on the Old Computer, then click Next.

Finally, select the location where you would wish to save the files.  Portable USB drives were born for stuff like this.  Be warned though, the drive may not be big enough.  Another option would be to save the settings somewhere on your hard drive first, and then move them over to multiple USB drives or burn them to CDs/DVDs.

Click Next, and wait for the files to be copied. If you have a lot of data, it may take quite a while for the process to complete.  Once it has completed, your settings are ready for the new installation.

Once you’ve reinstalled Windows, launch FAST just as you did initially to save your settings:

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.  Click Next. This time when prompted which computer you are using, select New computer. Click Next.

The following screen will ask you if you have a Windows XP installation CD for creating a wizard disk.  A wizard disk can be used for loading settings from another computer. In this case, a wizard disk is not necessary since the files have been saved to another location.

Select I don’t need the Wizard Disk. I already have collected my files and settings from my old computer. Click Next to proceed.

Finally, you will be prompted for the location of the files and settings. Select the Other radio button and browse to the location where you saved the files and click Next.

The files and settings will then be copied to the new computer. You may want to install all of the same programs you had on the old computer that you intend to use, before you run FAST. This will help to ensure that your settings will work properly with them.

What tools do you use to reinstall Windows without losing data?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• How To Create An Unattended Windows XP Disk (35)
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When you proceed with an unattended installation, you do still have to manually select the drive where you wish to install Windows (during the blue screen portion of the setup). However, once you’ve done that and started the installation you can walk away, grab a cup of coffee, eat some french toast, brush your teeth, check the weather, and by the time you get back you’ll see your new Windows XP desktop.

To create an unattended disk, you will of course need a Windows XP installation disk. You will also need to download nLite. nLite is a free program that allows you to create customized XP installation disks. Customizations you can perform include the integration of service packs, Windows updates, addition of drivers, preselection of installation options, preselection of components to install, and even more.

As a first step to unattended windows setup reference, you will need to get the latest Windows XP updates for your installation disk. Which updates you will need depends on how old your installation disk is. If you have a very old disk, you may need to download service pack 3 in addition to the updates that have taken place since the release of service pack 3. In the installation instructions below, you will learn how to find out whether or not Service Pack 3 is included on your installation disk.

Launch nLite, select your language, and click Next. Click the browse button to navigate to your the location of your installation CD. You will then be prompted for a location on the hard disk to store the files for processing. Select where you want to store the files and wait for the files to be copied.

Once the files have completed copying, nLite will detect what version of Windows XP is on the installation CD. If it says the installation has Service Pack 3, then you will not need to download the service pack. Otherwise you can download the service pack here. Proceed to the next step.

Since this is the first time you’ve run nLite, you will not have any presets. Just click Next to advance to the Task Selection page. On the task selection page, select Hotfixes, Add-ons, and Update Packs, Unattended, and Bootable ISO. If you had to download Service Pack 3 because you have an older version, select Service Pack as well.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can also include Drivers, select Components for removal, select Options, and Tweaks as well. These are more advanced options that will not be discussed in this particular How-To. Click the Next button to proceed.

If you need to integrate Service Pack 3, you will advance to the Service Pack page. Select the location of where you downloaded Service Pack 3. Once you’re done, click Next to advance to Hotfixes, Add-ons, and Update Packs.

Click the Insert button (in nLite, not on your keyboard) and navigate to the location of the update pack. Click Next to proceed to the Unattended settings. In order to avoid any interaction with the installation (other than selecting/formatting the hard drive in the blue screens), you will need to update the following:

• General Tab: Set Unattended Mode to Hide Pages
• General Tab: Enter your Product Key
• Users Tab: Password for the Administrator login (or check Blank password)
• User Tab: Add a new User and set the password (or check Blank password)
• User Tab: Set the Autologon to the new user you just added
• Owner and Network ID Tab: Computer Name
• Owner and Network ID Tab: Workgroup
• Owner and Network ID Tab: Full Name
• Owner and Network ID Tab: Organization
• Regional Tab: Timezone

Once you’ve updated those settings, and any others you would like to update, click Next. Continue when prompted if you would like to start the process. When the process is complete, click Next to proceed to the Bootable ISO section.

Under Mode, select whether you want to Create an Image or perform a Direct Burn to a CD. Direct Burn is probably the easier choice, because nLite will write it directly to disk. When you’ve made your selection click Make ISO. If you decide to burn to an image, use your favorite image burning software to write it to a disk.

That’s all there is to it! Just take the disk, pop it into the target machine, boot it up, select where you want to install/format, and then go take a little walk. Upon your return, your machine will have a fresh installation of Windows XP running on it!

Have you made unattended installation disks before? If so, what tools did you use and where did you obtain your update packs and addons?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data (19)
• How to Prepare Yourself for System Restore From Scratch (11)
• WinHack - Speed Up Your Windows XP Computer (Part 1) (13)
• WinHack - Speed Up Your Windows Computer (Part 2) (7)
• WinHack - How to Change the Windows Start Button (Win XP) (19)

However, sometimes it may be inconvenient or impossible to burn a physical disk. There are a number of programs that will allow you to mount disk images files virtually as CD or DVD devices without having to burn them to physical disks (such as Pismo File Mount).

Unfortunately, most of these programs require the installation of drivers, creation of registry entries, and often ask you to reboot the machine. Such requirements make it difficult to use them as portable apps on a USB drive.

The Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel by Microsoft is the perfect solution for mounting disk images from a portable USB drive.

To use the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel:

• Download the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1
• Extract the contents of the self-extracting excecutable onto your portable drive. Be sure that there are no spaces in the path to the directory you create (i.e. extract into a directory called X:\PortableApps\VCDRom, not X:\PortableApps\Virtual CD ROM). Otherwise, you will encounter problems later.
• Launch the VCdControlTool.exe program



• Click the Driver Control … button



• Click the Install Driver … button
• Browse to the location of where you extracted the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel files, and use the VCdRom.sys driver file.
• Click the Start button.
• Click the OK button.
• Click the Add Drive button. You should see a new drive letter appear in the Virtual CDRom Control Panel window.
• Click the Mount button.
• Navigate to the location of your disk image file (.iso, .udf, .cdfs, .jo, and .rock files are supported) and open it.

The disk image is now mounted on the new drive letter that was created. To restore the system to its original state:

• Click the Eject button.
• Select the drive(s) that were added, in the Virtual CDRom Control Panel window.
• Click the Remove Drive button.
• Click the Driver Control … button.
• Click the Stop button.
• Click the Remove Driver button.
• Click the OK button.

At a mere 32.5KB, the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel is extremely small and is very fast. It works on Windows XP and should also work on Vista if launched as the Administrator. If you keep disk images on your portable drive, you’ll definitely want to check it out.

Do you maintain disk images on your portable drive? What tool(s) do you utilize to use your images?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• How to Backup CD/DVDs to PC and Play them From Backup (10)
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It all sounds too good to be true and you’re probably asking the same questions I asked when I first heard about the service.

How can such a service sustain itself? How can they afford to do this?

According to the About VoIP page, they are funded by the calls made to their non-geographic DID (DIrect Dial) inbound numbers. So it is in their best interest to give away as many free numbers as they can, as calls made to those numbers provide revenue.

What’s the catch?

VoIP User is non-profit, and the revenue generated by inbound calls is used to allow users to make free international calls with their SIP accounts. As more inbound calls are made, more pooled minutes are made available for users to make outbound calls.

In order to prevent abuse (leeching of minutes), they have developed an algorithm to rate accounts on a scale from -10 to +10. Those with higher ratings are given priority to use pooled minutes. Users that do not generate inbound minutes will have lower account ratings, and may not be able to make outbound calls (or the amount of time they are allowed to call may be limited).

If you don’t know anyone in the UK and do not receive any inbound calls on your account, there will be restrictions on the amount of free outbound calling you will be able to do. If you are interested in making outbound calls, you will need to download a SIP client for your computer. One of the more popular free clients is X-Lite.

To set up X-Lite for VoIP User:

• Launch X-Lite and click the menu button (looks like a down arrow).
• Click on SIP Account Settings…



• Click the Add… button.
• Enter a Display Name (it is arbitrary what you enter here) in the account properties window.
• Enter your SIP username in both the User name and Authorization user name fields, as it appears on your SIP user settings page at VoIP User.
• Enter your SIP password. If you don’t remember what your password was when you signed up for VoIP user, you can reset your SIP password.
• Enter voipuser.org for the Domain.
• Enable the checkbox to Register with domain and receive incoming calls.
• Click the proxy radio button and enter sip.voipuser.org for the proxy.



• Click OK.
• Call someone!

To make calls, you will need to use the full international code standard. For instance, to dial the number 01234 567890 in the UK you would dial 0044 1234 567890. To dial 123 456 7890 in the USA, you would dial 001 123 456 7890. Please note that there is a mandatory 72 hour waiting period before you are able to make any outbound calls.

What do you think of VoIP User? What other service(s) do you use to make free international calls? Those who are interested can also check out a bunch of free international calling services that were profiled earlier.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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So how does Tor work? Volunteers run Tor software to allow their computers to become Tor nodes. Tor nodes pass Internet traffic between each other securely and anonymously. When the traffic reaches the final destination, it does so through a normal Internet connection. For more detail on how Tor works, please visit the Tor overview.

Installing Tor is relatively simple. As the instructions are different for each supported platform, I won’t go into detail on the installation here. Visit the Tor documentation page to find out how to install Tor on your computer. Essentially it involves downloading and installing a Tor bundle, which includes a GUI for Tor, Privoxy, and a few other programs that make it easy to configure and use Tor.

Once you have Tor installed, you have to configure your browser to take advantage of it. To do this, configure your browser to use the HTTP proxy located at localhost on port 8118 (Privoxy). If you use Firefox as your web browser, you should install the Tor button addon. The Tor button makes it very easy to switch Tor on and off in Firefox.

After your browser has been configured, you should verify that you are running Tor. If you are, the Tor checking website will display a notification indicating that you are indeed running it.

As Tor is passing encrypted traffic through multiple Tor nodes, it can be very slow. Your connection cannot be any faster than the slowest node used to route your traffic. For that reason, I would highly recommend using Tor with Firefox and the Tor button. This way you can just switch Tor on when you need to access a site anonymously.

It is important to note that Tor is not a silver bullet for anonymity and security. The network traffic between you, the Tor network, and within the Tor network is anonymous and encrypted. However, the connection between the last Tor node and your final destination is just a normal Internet connection. You also need to protect the information stored by your browser (saved passwords, cache, etc.) if you wish to maintain privacy and security.

What do you think of Tor? What other tools do you use for anonymity, privacy, and security?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Setting up a keyboard shortcut for any application in your start menu is fast and simple. Steps below explain how to create program shortcuts in Windows:

• Navigate the start menu to the application you want to shortcut. In this example, we will create a shortcut for the Calculator (one that I use all the time).



• Right-click on the application, and click on Properties.



• In the Properties window, you’ll see a field titled Shortcut key. Go to that field and type the letter C (or any other key you wish to use to launch the Calculator).
• Click OK

Now, whenever you want to quickly launch Calculator, just hit Ctrl-Alt-C (or whatever key you chose). I use application launch shortcut keys all the time for Calculator and Notepad. You can use it for those programs you constantly use and are sick of navigating through the Start menu to launch.

Do you use application launch shortcut keys? What other Windows shortcut keys do you find useful?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The other day, I created a search button for Google Reader, because surprisingly enough it doesn’t come with one and the button gallery doesn’t have one either. Mark O’Neill has already put together a search button for MakeUseOf, and I’ve made use of it myself quite a bit. For demonstration purposes, let’s pretend he didn’t make one and you’d really like to have one. Here’s what you would do to create a custom search button for MakeUseOf:

1. Navigate to the MakeUseOf homepage
2. Right-click inside of the search field.



3. Left-click on the menu item that says “Generate custom search…”



4. You’ll see the “Google Toolbar Custom Button Generator” automatically load in the page title, icon (if the site has one), and display the URL as the description. The description is what is displayed in the tooltip when you move your mouse over the button, so you might want to change it to something more descriptive like Search MakeUseOf.
5. Click Add and you’re done!

The new button will appear on the toolbar with a yellow box around it to highlight the new button.

The search button that Mark created also includes the MakeUseOf RSS feed as well. You can learn how to add an RSS feed in the Google Toolbar API documentation. The API docs contains additional information on how to create more advanced buttons.

Do you use the Google Toolbar in your browser? Have you created any custom buttons you found were lacking?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Welcome to My Firefox: Extensions, Themes, Setup (12)
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The Google Talk chatback badge allows people visiting your webpages to chat with you with what is essentially a specialized version of the Google Talk gadget. The chatback badge will display your Google Talk online status, along with a customizable message, and a link to open a chat window with you. You can opt to use a nickname in the chat, if you wish to remain anonymous or pseudonymous.

You can also create different badges if you wish. This can be useful if you have multiple personalities as many bloggers and webmasters do. When someone clicks the link in the badge, you will receive a message from chatback@talk.google.com with a URL to chat to the guest. When you click the link, the chat begins! The guest doesn’t even need a Google Account to chat with you!

Setting up your Google Talk chatback badge is easy:

1. Go to the Create a Google Talk chatback badge page (log into your Google Account if prompted).
2. Click the Edit dropdown and change the badge to your liking.
3. Click the Update badge button.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the badge looks the way you would like it to look.
5. Copy the code in the text area at the bottom of the screen and paste it into your webpage(s).

If you are putting the badge into a narrow column on your webpage, you may find that 200px is too wide. If this is the case, you’ll need to update the code by changing the value 200 to the desired width. There are two places in the code where you’ll need to provide the new width. See the highlighted sections in the screenshot below.

Do you primarily still use Google Talk? What do you think of the Google Talk chatback badge?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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When you integrate Disqus (pronounced “discuss”) with your WordPress blog, you create a new Disqus community that mirrors the post/comment activity on the blog. The blog post becomes the start of a new discussion and the comments are the subsequent thread. Members can also post to the community that you create. This is a great way for readers of your blog to start discussions with you and all of your readers.

As a Disqus user, all the comments you post to other Disqus-enabled blogs will appear on your profile page (you don’t need a blog to have a Disqus account). This is a nice way for others to see all your words of wisdom that you have shared on other blogs. It is also a good method for finding other users and communities you may be interested in following.

Disqus also plays nice with the built-in WordPress commenting system. Existing comments will be imported into Disqus and when comments are posted onto Disqus they are kept in sync with your WordPress blog. If you change your mind later and you no longer want to use Disqus, you can simply uninstall it. You don’t have to worry about losing comments that were posted through Disqus.

To install Disqus on your Wordpress blog:

• Create an account on Disqus.
• Download the Disqus for Wordpress plugin.
• Place the contents of the archive in your WordPress plugins directory.
• Activate the plugin and navigate to Comments > DISQUS.



• Enter your Disqus login credentials and proceed with the installation process.

  

• If you would like to import your existing WordPress comments into Disqus, select Advanced Options and click Import.

For further installation details, you can visit the Disqus integration page and view the Disqus documentation for WordPress.

When a blog is converted to use Disqus, individuals that commented on the blog prior to the conversion can claim their imported comments. When users claim comments, verification links are sent to the email addresses used to post the comments. The Disqus users can click the verification links to associate comments on the converted blog with their profiles.

Disqus also automatically subscribes commenters to any responses to their comments. They will receive the responses at the email address they provided with the comment. The best part of this feature is that they can respond via email! There’s no need to revisit the blog post and respond there, as it can all be done by replying to the email.

Disqus also allows non-Disqus members to post comments just as they would normally on any WordPress blog. Users just provide their name, email address, and post the comment. Responses to their comments are sent to their email address and they can reply by email just the same as Disqus users.  Comments by non-Disqus comments are basically treated the same as imported comments.  If non-Disqus commenters do eventually sign up for Disqus accounts, they can also claim their comments to associate them with their new account.

Unfortunately, WordPress is the only well-documented platform for Disqus at this time. The Disqus help page states that MovableType, Tumblr, Blogger, and TypePad are also supported, but the help links just go to a “coming soon” page.  They also have a JavaScript interface in the works (which would allow you to integrate with any platform), but again there is no documentation for it yet.

Fortunately, there is a well-documented Disqus API. That means that developers can integrate Disqus on other platforms that are not officially supported, which is good news for users (and potential users) on the following platforms:

• Drupal
• b2evolution
• Graffiti
• Joomla
• RubyGem

If your blog does not use one of these platforms or uses one of the undocumented platforms that Disqus claims to support, then IntenseDebate might be a better option for you. IntenseDebate can use JavaScript to display comments, so it can be easily integrated into any blog.

However, IntenseDebate does not have the community features and profile pages are only limited to the last 5 comments posted. Disqus makes all comments you’ve made available from your profile, not just the last five. If you’d like to see Disqus comments in action, here are a few blogs that implement them:

• louisgray.com
• VentureBeat
• obscurely famous
• The Eagle-Tribune

You might want to also check out some Disqus profile pages:

• Louis Gray
• Duncan Riley
• Daniel Ha

What do you think of Disqus and other commenting systems?   Which one do you prefer?  Do you use Disqus on your blog?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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• Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars (4)
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The following tools are available on codeflux’s Internet tools gateway:

• finger - displays information about the system users
• nslookup - query Internet domain name servers
• whois - looks up records in the Network Information Center (NIC) database
• ssl - extract SSL (secure socket layer) information from a secure host
• traceroute - print the route packets take to network host
• ping - send query packets to network hosts
• dig - domain information groper - used to gather information from the DNS server

In addition to the Internet tools gateway, codeflux provides some other great tools online as well:

document validation - verify the validity of different document types (HTML, XHTML, CSS, and SMIL) against the W3C and IETF standards.

tidy - prettify web page code for your web pages with HTML Tidy

apachebench - measure web server performance with ApacheBench

unix man pages - UNIX manual pages online with keyword search as well.

foldoc/jargon - look up technology terminology from two sources: FOLDOC (the Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing) and the Jargon File (AKA the New Hacker’s Dictionary)

encoder - encode text from any of these formats into another: text, binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal, and web-style.

and more such as atomic time, universal unit converter and resistor reference.

You may find it faster and more convenient to use codeflux when you already have a browser window open. You will definitely find it easier to use codeflux if you don’t regularly use a command line. All of the tools use very simple interfaces. The web design is also relatively simplistic which results in very fast load times.

Let us know in the comments what you think.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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