Most users of Google Chrome enjoy its minimal interface. So why use a clunky toolbar to display your bookmarks full-time if you don't have to? Like many other excellent Chrome features, adding a miniscule bookmarks menu button is only a command line switch away!

Just right click your Chrome shortcut and choose properties. In the target box, add a space and --bookmark-menu after chrome.exe. the result should something look like this:

C:\Users\LeeM\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --bookmark-menu

This works on versions 2, 3, and 4 of Google Chrome, so it's a tweak anyone can use. That is, as long as you're running Windows - my Linux and Mac versions don't seem to be able to add the button yet.

Netbook users, enjoy your extra 28 vertical pixels!

Note: as mentioned in the comments, yes, you CAN add multiple switches - just put a space in between each one like so:

chrome.exe --enable-user-scripts --enable-sync --bookmark-menu

If you ever need to open a command prompt window from a Vista right-click menu (example: you sit down to use your computer and a message suddenly pops up -- "open a command prompt window from a right-click menu your computer will blow up"), how would you go about doing it?

The process is simple: hold down the shift key, then right click on a folder icon, in a folder, or the desktop. An "Open Command Window Here" option will appear in the menu as a result of the shift key's ability to, well, shift stuff. Finally, when the command window opens, take a look at the current path: it's whatever you clicked on.

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.

Now what?

Ever wish you had your whole desktop on a flash disk? You know what we mean, you take a spreadsheet up to your 'rents, and you realize that they have no program to actually open your spreadsheet with. Or maybe you hop from computer to computer in several offices, and hate the fact that every computer you work on is just different enough to make it difficult to get things done.

Even if you don't use Linux as a main desktop, it can come in handy in these types of situations. Flash storage is cheap as dirt, and there are a number of small, yet full-bodied distributions that can run off flash drives. Most modern computers can boot from USB mass storage by changing the boot order in the computer's BIOS (if you've never done this, please consult your computer's documentation. It's not particularly difficult, but does vary a bit from computer to computer.)

We're looking at two such distributions over the next couple Switch installments. The two little distributions -- Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux Not -- have been chosen for their flexibility and very different approaches to the same issues. Many distributions can be pared down to fit on flash drives, but these two are optimized for it from the get-go.

The command line. It strikes fear in the hearts of many a new Linux user. They open their terminals reluctantly, and there the prompt sits, with the cursor blinking in rhythm with their racing hearts. What does that blinking cursor want? It's expecting something... It wants something...

All right, so maybe it's not horror movie material.

But it is intimidating for many new users. Navigating the command line might be a mystery to you, or maybe you've read a little about it and wonder: out of all those commands, which ones am I really going to use? Which ones are the most help in a given situation?

Either way, we've got you covered. These are the commands we've found are most useful to new users. They range from basic navigation to commands that are great for troubleshooting.

Your shiny new Linux system has it all -- except that one program you really needed it to install. You get online, you find the program's website, and click 'download'. Except there's not just a link to the program there.

There are four, or five, or more links to the program. Each has a slightly different format, ending with .rpm, .deb, .tgz, or possibly even .ebuild.

Some include x86 in the name, while others say ppc or amd64. What's the difference? What's actually included in these packages?

Packages are pre-compiled programs for your system (the exception being Gentoo's .ebuild). You've got to know a bit about your system to install them.

You love us. We love you. Aww. It's this unspoken thing we have. So why aren't you pimping your Download Squad commenter account by adding an avatar?

Recently, Download Squad received the same spiffy threaded comment system enjoyed by Engadget, Autoblog and Joystiq. Then we added a slick default avatar, just to make it official. We've noticed however, that many of you haven't added a custom avatar of your own.. so what gives? We've already established this deep, unspoken love we share (remember, back in our opening sentence?), so why aren't you showing that love by pimping your Download Squad commenter account?

We know, you've been busy. The holidays and all. You had that doctor appointment, the car needed to go to the shop, all those phonecalls to family, and all the shinny geek gifts you got which have distracted you from your daily grind. In fact, given the amount of political strife at home and abroad, we're lucky you even call anymore, right? Sure, we know how it is.

Just in case you've got a few minutes on this glorious first day of 2008, we've put together a brief how-to for pimping out your Download Squad commenter account; Show us, and yourself some love?

Last time we took a look at the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, we showed how to do some fun, if easy, stuff with it--like setting up custom RSS news sources, placing VoIP calls, and even playing a little Quake 2. Now, we've assembled a new video demonstrating one of the most quirky hacks you can pull off with Nokia's little handheld computer: assembling a functional GPS tracking system using a Bluetooth GPS receiver and freely-available software.

In this feature, we'll show you how to set up Maemo Mapper, the open-source navigation software, and how to obtain and install the map tile images you'll need to equip your N800 with both street maps and satellite imagery. We'll also see how the N800 compares to Nokia's N95 smart phone, which carries onboard GPS hardware and mapping software.

We know, being responsible is just so, hard. Electronics which run the nifty software we cover and love contain some nasty stuff that's not so friendly for the environment when left to rot in a landfill. So what's a gadget oving geek to do? Recycle.

Our newest little sister, DIY Life, has a great article on the basics of responsibly recycling your old gear. So, clean out that junk drawer and put those useless gadgets where they belong!

By the way, DIY Life posts all sorts of nifty tips, tech related and not so tech related. If you've got a hankerin' to get your tinker on, check 'em out and find some weekend projects.

Whatever the platform, if you're a serious computer user, you've been there. You're copying a huge volume of files from one disk or partition to another, only your computer is lagging so bad that you can't get anything else done! Fear no more Linux fans, a great tutorial at Fried CPU shows you to use ionice to control that unruly I/O that's sapping your real-time productivity.

John of Fried CPU writes, "The best usecase for using ionice to improve performance is when you need to do two classes of tasks at once: The ones that don't use much disk IO but demand fast response, and the ones that do a LOT of disk IO but don't need it done urgently."

Ionice allows the user to tune the performance of specific operations to keep everything running nice and smooth, even when there's lots to be done.

Want to learn how to choose a video game system or how to take care of a kitten? SuTree can help.

The new site from Israel-based E-learning Knowledge Solutions allows users to submit videos that are posted in various places on the internet, including About.com, Grouper, and Metacafe.

The result is a collection of how-to videos that you can search or browse from a central location. When you find a video you want to watch, you click the image and are taken to the original video source.

The service works well as a repository for DIY and how-to videos, which are often hard to find under the videos of teenagers talking to webcams and people doing silly stuff on sites like YouTube. Currently, SuTree has over 5000 videos indexed, covering topics ranging from parenting to sports.
[via TechCrunch]

PuTTY is tops on the short list of applications I install first on any Windows machine. Over the years I've used PuTTY, I've installed it on a huge number of computers but I've always had one complaint; There isn't a configuration file I can backup or move to a new machine.

Getting all the little comfort settings correct for each SSH connection can be a pain. The third time you set emulation, keys, encryption type, etc. for each machine you regularly access, you lose patience. The fifth time you find yourself re-entering settings you might do what I did, find a better way.

One of the best and handiest tools in the power user's toolbox is GParted. I've written about it before, and the short version is this: GParted is an open source Linux app for modifying your hard drive's partitions without losing any data. It has support for a huge number of file systems, including those belonging to Windows, and though it's not as easy to use as some commercial solutions, it has the distinct advantage of being totally free. If you want a hand getting up and running with GParted, Ihighly recommend Modify Your Partitions With GParted Without Losing Data, a new article over at HowtoForge. It runs you through the whole process of using the fantastic GParted LiveCD to shuffle around your partitions to your heart's content.

A bit of a warning, though: Repartitioning is an inherently risky activity, and messing with existing partitions without first making a backup could, as the kids say, end in tears. Always backup.

Making your own Dashboard Widgets for Mac OS X is nothing new, but making your own Widgets using the Dashcode Developer Beta changes the entire process. Apple has taken the ease of use of Xcode and whittled it down to scale, providing all the tools necessary to quickly and easily develop your own Widgets. In this How To I'll show you how to go about creating a Download Squad RSS widget. Follow along if you like, but by all means feel free to improvise.

This is a very simple How To and is not intended to teach you how to code a Widget from scratch, but to show you how easy it is with Dashcode to create one. If you would like to find out more about developing Dashboard Widgets, check this guide on Apple's site.

Most audio software these days offer either built-in or plugin functionality that will attempt to level the volume of your MP3 files so that you aren't turning the volume up to hear soft songs, then getting blasted by louder ones. So why is it that even after turning that option on, you sometimes notice a significant volume difference between some songs? What's worse is when you're listening to songs from the same album, and the volumes jump around abnormally after applying volume normalization.

The problem is that the vast majority of audio player programs use peak amplitude analysis to determine how "loud" a song is and normalize based on that, rather than doing a more comprehensive analysis of the frequencies that impact how loud the music actually sounds. But even those that do a more comprehensive analysis fail to consider songs within the context of the album they belong to.

Luckily, there's a great little utility called MP3 Gain that does lossless volume analysis and adjustment based on David Robinson's Replay Gain algorithm, as well as allowing for the volume of entire albums to be processed. MP3 Gain has been around for a number of years, and it doesn't appear that it is being actively developed anymore, but since MP3 technology hasn't changed much either that doesn't matter for our purposes.

So, how do you fix an entire library of music? Pretty easy, actually. MP3 Gain offers batch processing options that allow you to process an entire folder at once. But if you collect music albums, you'll want to do those separately. The reason is that MP3Gain offers two modes: Radio and Album. Radio analysis and gain adjustment will adjust all songs to the same maximum decibel level. Album mode analyzes all of the songs in an album, essentially considering them to be one entire song, then adjusts them all to a maximum decibel level, but maintains their relative volume.