Back on April 24th, we happily installed a clean version of the 64-bit Ubuntu Hardy Heron release. For a few days, life was sweet. Hardy had Firefox, and we very easily installed Flash from the Hardy repositories. It all seemed to work fine, at first glance.
The honeymoon ended really quickly. We started to notice that Firefox was doing exceedingly odd things when we tried to upload images to our blogging software. It would try its damnedest to upload, but there was just no love.
After much frustration and swearing, we were reminded of a neat little script put together by Kilz on the Ubuntu Forums. We had used FF3in1 previously, with great success. It was a slightly different situation that time (Flash wouldn't install), but all signs pointed to it being a 64-bit versus 32-bit issue this time around, as well.
FF3in1 conveniently installs the 32-bit version of your choice of browsers on your 64-bit Ubuntu system. It also installs various plugins. It's pretty simple. Enable universe and multiverse in your repositories, unzip and run FF3in1. It'll install the proper dependencies (though it did skip lib32nss-mdns on our system, which is necessary for the browser to see the internet connection). It even allows you to opt out of plugin installations.
FF3in1 gives the option for several browser installs -- Flock, Firefox 2, Swiftweasel and IceCat. The script works on Dapper, Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy and Hardy. It can also be used to install multiple browsers (for web developers, or maybe because you can never have too many?).
Best of all, it did indeed solve our problem. We'd definitely recommend giving FF3in1 a whirl to those 64-bit Ubuntu'ers out there that are having some odd glitches with the default install of Firefox.
RegToy is a freeware utility that is basically a collection of utilities. The program sidebar is broken up into three main categories: System, User, and Others.
The System section allows you to perform seriously arcane apothecary, such as enabling a large system cache, forcing Windows to unload DLLs from memory, setting prefetch and MFT settings, tweaking your video card settings, and more.
In the User section, you have a whole screen dedicated to tweaking Windows Explorer, as well as different customization options for your Taskbar and Start Menu, Icon settings, Logon settings, and more.
In fact, if there's a statement that best personifies RegToy, it has to be "and more."
We'll let you search out what else RegToy has to offer, but if you're looking for a window manager, registry cleaner, file renamer, screen capturer, memory and disk cleaner, and more...then you should give RegToy a shot.
One warning: the home page loads very slowly. But trust us: it's worth the wait.
Shidewin is a simple program that allows you to reclaim all of your wayward windows, applications or otherwise.
Tell us if this has happened to you before: In a dual display setup, you need to unplug the second monitor for some reason, only to find that the programs that were displaying on the second monitor decided not to move back over to the primary one. Where are they?
Why, on the second monitor, of course. You know, the one that's now unplugged.
To rectify this situation in the past, you would have to plug in the second monitor again, then drag your programs back over to the primary monitor.
Shidewin will take care of this problem and more. Once launched, it will show you all open windows, including applications. To make a window appear (or, in the above case, reappear), simply click on its name. Voila!
Shidewin is also useful when your multiple virtual desktop software crashes, or if a window is only accessible via the system tray and the icon disappeared (when explorer.exe is killed, for example).
Hinx Backup Easy is a free program for Windows that will back up your files to a remote server or local backup solution.
You know, it used to be that if our entire system crashed, and we had made no backups whatsoever, we could always blame the paucity of backup software on the market (and the resident difficulties of the few backup solutions available).
Today, we can no longer foist the blame on the lack of backup software. In the past few years, there has been a literal explosion of backup software (well, okay, it's actually metaphorical: we haven't seen any real software explosions lately. If you have, be sure to send us the YouTube link).
Now that we have finally realized that it doesn't take a monsoon or class 5 tornado to ruin our system, and now that there are lots of backup solutions out there, there's no excuse to neglect backing up anymore.
Hinx Backup Easy is a program that will help ease the transition into backup of your important files. The interface is selectively sparse, with three main tabs separating individual program tasks. The first tab is for setting up local backups (e.g. to a removable hard drive). The second tab is for configuring your FTP server options. The third tab offers scheduling options, along with the option to backup only the files modified since the last backup.
You can easily perform set-and-forget scheduled backups, and select only the particular folders and files you want backed up.
So what are you waiting for? Download Hinx Backup Easy and get to backuping.
When Apple released the latest generation of iPods, the company also caused a great deal of pain for Linux users. While Linux developers had an easy time getting every other iPod in the past to work with Linux distributions like Ubuntu and SUSE, the latest iPods are different. In their infinite wisdom, Apple redesigned the iPod music database in such a way that it is encrypted with a hash key. Not only does this make it difficult to develop third party software that can access that database, but if you try to sync your 6th gen iPod with Ubuntu 7.10, it will destroy the database, making your music unplayable on the iPod (but still accessible in disk mode).
Of course, the Linux community being what it was, it took just a few days before a highly technical solution started making the rounds. But how does Joe Six-pack use this to sync his shiny new iPod? Download Squad delivers. Read on for step by step instructions!
All right, the headline is a little bit of a lie. Some Linux installs are hairier, take longer, and just aren't as soothing as the one we're about to show you. They do all work approximately the same way, however, and that's just fine for us as a point of illustration.
So there we are, looking at the "Download" page of an Ubuntu derived distribution. We decide that we'll download the x86 version of the distro (we'll assume we don't have a 64 bit or PPC system or don't want a 64 bit OS). So we click on the file that ends in .iso, and it starts downloading.
If you've ever been through the hassle of moving an Outlook account to a new computer, or restoring an Outlook account that had been deleted or corrupted, then you need to take a long look at OutlookBackupPro.
OutlookBackupPro will backup everything associated with your email account, including signature files, customized stationary, templates, OutNote notes, and all registry entries and system settings associated with Outlook. It will also backup your Outlook PST files. For those among us that can't even remember our wedding anniversary, the program also offers set-and-forget automated backups.
Once the files are backed up, OutlookBackupPro can upload your files to any FTP server for safekeeping. Restoration is as simple as a mouse click.
OutlookBackupPro also allows you to backup any files or folders along with your Outlook backup, so you can back up whatever you want without leaving the program interface.
OutlookBackupPro is available as a 14 day demo, and costs $39.99 to register. OutlookBackupPro works with Outlook 2003 or 2007, and requires 2000, XP, or Vista.
AVG is ready to pull the trigger on their new Anti-Virus suite, AVG Anti-Virus 8.0. From first looks, it's going to be a pretty major update. For starters, AVG Anti-Virus 8.0 will offer more than its standard Anti-Virus protection. Popular tools AVG Anti-Spyware, AVG Anti-Rootkit, and LinkScanner, previously stand-alone applications, are now integrated into AVG Anti-Virus 8.0. The code base has seen a significant overhaul as well, in the hopes that inevitable system slowdowns caused by AVG's real-time protection will be lessened.
AVG Anti-Virus remains one of the most popular free Anti-Virus solutions on the market, and this update will no doubt solidify their dominance. At the time of this writing, however, it's not exactly clear if the free edition will be updated at the same time as the paid edition, so if you aren't one for waiting, you might have to pay to see 8.0.
The full version of AVG will continue to offer an enhanced feature set, including tech support, greater scheduling capabilities, and support for newer multi-processor core chips.
We're taking a little departure this week from our sometimes successful attempt to be non-distro-specific, and looking at a neat little program that runs on Debian and Ubuntu flavors (including Ubuntu-derivatives, like Mint).
Have you ever had the joy of installing restricted or proprietary drivers on Debian or Ubuntu? Most of the time, it really does work like a charm. Sometimes though, something doesn't go quite as planned. We had this happen quite recently with Mythbuntu and an onboard NVIDIA card. The restricted drivers wouldn't work right, and the very latest from NVIDIA compounded our problem.
In our desperation, we tried Envy. Envy is the creation of Alberto Milone. It is an unofficial (so please note you are using it at your own risk) installer for both NVIDIA and ATI drivers. For those of you who are interested, it's a Python/PyGTK application.
We're guessing that most of you just want to get your freakin' video drivers installed, though.
SuperDuper!, the long loved Mac backup utility, has finally been updated for Mac OS X Leopard.
You might be wondering how SuperDuper! finds a niche even after Apple's own backup utility, Time Machine, has been integrated into every Mac with Leopard installed. The developers of SuperDuper! think of their relationship to Time Machine as complementary rather than competitive. Here's why:
SuperDuper! is for the disasters, the floods, the clicking hard drives, the machines that refuse to boot, whereas Time Machine's strength lies in the easy recovery of a single folder, file, or group of files. Time Machine can restore a full system, but that's not its bread and butter (and restoring from Time Machines requires you to have your Leopard DVD at hand).
SuperDuper! creates a bootable clone of your hard drive (which you can even place side-by-side with a Time Machine backup, if you have the space). Even if the original hard drive has been rendered unusable, you can boot from the clone and continue working. Tres cool.
The SuperDuper! 2.5 update is free for all registered users.
If you have a web site, you're probably using shared hosting. Shared hosting, for those unfamiliar with it, is when a company takes a single web server and hosts many web sites on it, sharing the web serving duties and making it possible for the company to make a profit while offering us $3.99/month hosting plans.
While it may be economical, sometimes shared hosting means your site is slow depending on whom you're sharing your site with. For example, if someone has a blog that is hosted on the same server your domain is hosted on and they have a really popular post (perhaps getting on Digg), the server will become slow under the heavy load. This heavy load can bog down the server and make it slow, sometimes unresponsive for everyone else being hosted on that server.
Enter myIPneighbors.com. By giving them a website's address or IP address, they report back with how many other websites are being hosted on the same server as yours. For example, my site is sharing it's web server with 191 sites. Yikes, that's a lot!
If you're having performance issues with your web site and you feel the server might be to blame, check out myIPneighbors and assess for yourself if you web host is spreading it's resources too thin. Depending on your analysis, a web host change might be in your future!
For bloggers or anyone who wants their own website, a natural question always is - who should I choose for a web host? There are many guides and ways to get advice on this subject. But the fact is that choosing the cheapest isn't always the best. If you know someone who has a site and you're impressed with the speed and uptime of that site, it might be beneficial to know who their web host is.
Finding out is easy with a great website called WhoIsHostingThis. When you visit the site, there's a simple box where you type the name of any site, hit "Tell Me", and the web host is revealed. Very cool.
We appreciate that WhoIsHostingThis doesn't require registration. Additionally, there's no annoying Flash ads (yet) or any other factors that drive us nuts when browsing the web.
This is a very practical website to add to your web toolbox.
Looking for a free spyware scanner with real-time spyware and virus protection? Look no further than Spyware Terminator.
Aside from the standard spyware scan, Spyware Terminator has some extra features not normally found in a free product:
Real-time protection that intercepts spyware before it installs
Includes antivirus protection, with an antivirus scanner and real-time protection
Web security guard ranks a website's threat level and notifies you about potential security risks on the page
The spyware scan can be scheduled or manually initiated; you also have the option of a deep, quick, or customized scan. Once the scan is over, Spyware Terminator will quarantine or delete the files with one click; and in the words of a famous character with the same moniker, "it's terminated" (Austrian accent not included, see store for details).
Spyware Terminator is currently in beta, and Windows only.
EnhanceMyVista is a free program that configures various settings, hidden or otherwise, in Windows Vista.
EnhanceMyVista has lots of different options, including:
Registry cleaner and defragmenter
View all running processes
Recent items cleaner: cleans recent document lists, temporary folders, recently played items in Media Player
Complete customization for your start menu, taskbar, system tray, and Windows Media Player
The program itself is very straightforward and user friendly, with a menu running across the top with the different sections to customize. The options load below as you select each section. Some of the options are reserved for the "pro" version, though the free version offers enough customization to keep you busy.
All in all, a very good tool for tweaking the hidden options and removing the unnecessary headaches of Vista.
There are many unique ways to test your system stability (like faking an earthquake by shaking your desk wildly), but this one takes the cake.
The System Stability Tester, a freeware download for Linux, Unix, and Windows, claims to test the stability of your system by calculating millions of digits of Pi in different threads, and comparing the threads for any disparities. You can also run the test on a single thread for benchmarking purposes.
Originally developed as a system stressing and benchmarking tool for overclockers, the System Stability Tester has since gone open source (licensed under the GNU public license) and more mainstream (e.g., by giving Windows users an easy executable install file).
So after your system calculates up to 128 million digits of Pi, what comes next? Memorization, of course. In "White and Nerdy," Weird Al claimed to know Pi to a thousand places. In the real world, if you can believe it, that number is paltry.
Fun fact for the day: the world record for number of memorized Pi numbers is held by Chao Lu of China. Want to know how many numbers he memorized? Click the jump...
Back on April 24th, we happily installed a clean version of the 64-bit Ubuntu Hardy Heron release. For a few days, life was sweet. Hardy had Firefox, and we very easily installed Flash from the Hardy repositories. It all seemed to work fine, at first glance.
When Apple released the latest generation of iPods, the company also 
All right, the headline is a little bit of a lie. Some Linux installs are hairier, take longer, and just aren't as soothing as the one we're about to show you. They do all work approximately the same way, however, and that's just fine for us as a point of illustration.
We're taking a little departure this week from our sometimes successful attempt to be non-distro-specific, and looking at a neat little program that runs on Debian and Ubuntu flavors (including Ubuntu-derivatives, like Mint).
