Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category


Setting your screen resolution in Kubuntu Hardy

Posted by Flo in Tech, Tricks on August 12th, 2008.
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When upgrading to Kubuntu Hardy, I found that the maximum possible resolution I could use seemed to be 800×600… Not being able to select my preferred 1024×768 resolution, I had to figure out how to be able to select this resolution. This took me about 6 hours… and the solution for this problem is quite easy. So here’s my newbie (it’s me who is obviously the n00b…) guide in fixing this problem.

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Rip videos and music from Youtube

Posted by Flo in Tricks on August 6th, 2008.
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Sometimes videos are just too interesting to let them stay on Youtube, you just need to have them. There are several ways to do this, but I think that using the free program “MediaCoder” is the best way. This is a quick guide explaining how to use this software to get videos from youtube. I will also explain how to use it to only rip the music from a Youtube video (so you don’t have to search for it on usenet, P2P or a torrent site). This trick also seems to work for MySpace, Google Video and some other video services.

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CCleaner cleans your Windows

Posted by Flo in Freeware on August 4th, 2008.
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When you are using your computer, especially when you are browsing the web, a lot of files are saved that you probably won’t need anymore. These files also include information about your browsing experience. CCleaner deletes these files so you can use this space for useful things and to secure your privacy.

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Stop BOINC from slowing down your computer too much

Posted by Flo in Tech, Tricks on June 22nd, 2008.
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Lending your computer to science is a good thing to do, but you don’t want to have any consequences. If you disable the BOINC screensaver, the BOINC manager will even run if you are using the computer. This can slow down your computer pretty much. Luckily there’s a simple trick to prevent this, and still let BOINC run when you’re using the computer.

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Hitman Pro Anti-Spyware Combo

Posted by Flo in Freeware on June 14th, 2008.
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The downside of having a popular OS like Windows is that people make virusses and spyware for it. And because you generally don’t know if you’ve downloaded some spyware on your computer, you’ll need software to detect it, and to remove it. One of the best ways to do this is using “Hijack This”, but it is quite hard to use, so you probably want something more user friendly. The problem of the easier software is that most companies only offer some sort of a demo version for free, so you’ll need different programs to find all spyware. This is exactly what Hitman Pro offers.

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Ares Galaxy – a filesharing powertool

Posted by Flo in File sharing, Open Source, Tech on May 17th, 2008.
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It’s quite a while ago when I last used P2P networks like Kazaa to download files. The main reason for that was that it seemed to be packed with spyware and other nonsense I didn’t want. A while ago this all changed because my favorite bittorrent client, Azureus, seemed to make my computer unstable, so I needed another client. I found Ares Galaxy, a p2p network and bittorrent client in one, and I’m really satisfied about it.

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Image to ASCII converter roundup

Posted by Flo in Tech, Websites on May 3rd, 2008.
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Making ASCII art of your images if probably one of the most useless functions the internet offers, but it can be quite cool when you get a nice result. I’ve listed some sites that offer Image to ASCII converting so you can try it out for yourself. Some websites really give you high quality results!

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Gaming without discs

Posted by Flo in Tech, Tricks on May 1st, 2008.
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Sick of always searching for your gamediscs? Or do you want to play games on your laptop somewhere else without taking your whole collection with you? If you have sufficient harddisc space, these troubles are over. By making iso files of your gamediscs, and using the right applications, you will never have to use your discs again. And the great thing about this trick, is that you won’t need to alter your game files, so you won’t have trouble patching!

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Refile, a fast renamer

Posted by Flo in Open Source, Tech on April 28th, 2008.
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Sometimes you just need some files to be used or played in a specific order. For example, on (old) mp3 players, your songs will be played in alphabetical order, not the order in which you’ve put them in the map. This problem also occurs when you want to burn files in a specific order, most burning apps just sort them alphabetically. The quickest solution to this problem is to add numbers in front of the songs, listing them in the right order. Doing this by hand would take ages, but luckily Refile can do this for you in no time, for free. Yes, free, some people want $30 for their bulk renaming tools.

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Online converting

Posted by Flo in Tech, Websites on April 12th, 2008.
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When sharing information through the internet, nothing is more irritating than people who share information in uncommon formats, or let’s say: formats that you don’t use. Through the years, this problem has grown worse because every OS has it’s own text software that creates his own filetypes, his own media software that creates his own media extensions, etc. The best solution would be an open format that every platform should support, but that would damage some important monopoly positions, and who is going to decide which format is used? This is why there’s only one solution to the compatibility problem: converting from one format to the other. There’s some nice software to do this on the web, but the easiest software isn’t (spam)free, and you need quite some applications to be able to convert everything to anything. Luckily, web based convertors provide a better solution.

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