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Wake On Lan (WOL) – What Is It & How To Use It

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:20:45 +0000

Technology often yields ridiculous conveniences, like being able to turn on your computer from miles away without pushing the power button. Wake-on-LAN, has been around for a while, so let’s see how it works and how we can enable it.

What is Wake-on-LAN?

Wake-on-LAN is an industry standard protocol for waking computers up from a very low power mode remotely. The definition of “low power mode” has changed a bit over time, but we can take it to mean while the computer is “off” and has access to a power source. The protocol also allows for a supplementary Wake-on-Wireless-LAN ability as well. WoL is dependent on two things: your motherboard and your network card. Your motherboard must be hooked up to an ATX-compatible power supply, as most computers in the past decade or so are. Your Ethernet or wireless card must also support this functionality. Because it is set either through the BIOS or through your NIC’s firmware, you don’t need specific software to enable it. Support for WoL is pretty universal nowadays, even when it’s not advertised as a feature, so if you have a computer built in the past decade or so you’re covered. If, however, you have a more modern computer, you may find that you have advanced BIOS options for allowing the computer to power on via a time schedule. It’s not technically WoL, but in terms of functionality, it’s pretty close. For those of you who build your own rigs, take care when buying an Ethernet card. While most built-in cards on motherboards don’t need this step, discrete network cards often need a 3-pin cable attached to the motherboard to support WoL. Do your research online before you buy so you’re not disappointed later on down the line.

The MagicPacket: How WoL Works

WoL-enabled computers essentially wait for a “magic packet” to arrive that includes the NIC’s MAC address in it. These magic packets are sent out by professional software made for any platform, but can also be sent by routers and internet-based websites. The typical ports used for WoL magic packets are UDP 7 and 9. Because your computer is actively listening for a packet, some power is feeding your network card which will result in your laptop’s battery draining faster, so road warriors should take care to turn this off when you need to eke out some extra juice. Magic packets are usually sent over the entirety of a network and contain the subnet information, network broadcast address, and the MAC address of the target computer’s network card, whether Ethernet or wireless. The above image shows the results of a packet sniffer tool used on magic packet, which brings into question exactly how secure they are when used in unsafe networks and over the internet. On a secure network, or for basic home use, there shouldn’t be any practical reason to worry. Many motherboard manufacturers often implement software along with WoL capabilities to offer hassle-free or largely configuration-free usage scenarios.

Enabling WoL on Your System

BIOS Most older computers and many modern ones have their WoL settings buried in the BIOS. Depending on your system, you need to hit Escape, F2, or Delete to get into the BIOS, but if you’re not sure then you should check your system’s documentation. Once you’re in, check under Power Management or Advanced Options or something of that sort. On this HP computer’s BIOS, the setting is found near the “resume after power failure” option. Many computer, however, do not have a BIOS option. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that the capability isn’t there, it just means we need to go through the operating system to enable WoL. Windows Click Start, then search for and open the Device Manager. Find your networking device in the list. Right click on it and go to Properties, then click on the Advanced tab. Scroll down in the list to find “Wake on Magic Packet” and change the Value to “Enabled.” You can leave the other “Wake on” settings alone. Click OK when you’re done. OS X Open up your System Settings and choose Energy Saver. Under the Options tab, you should see “Wake for Ethernet” or something similar. This enables Wake-on-LAN. Linux Ubuntu has a great tool that can check to see if your machine supports WoL and can enable it. Open up a terminal and install “ethtool” with the following command:

sudo apt-get install ethtool

You can check your compatibility by running:

sudo ethtool eth0

If your default interface is something else, substitute it for “eth0”. Look for the “Supports Wake-on” section. As long as one of the letters listed is “g,” you can use magic packets for WoL. To enable this option, use the following command.

sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol g

This should take of it. You can run the command to check and see if it’s enabled now. Look for the “Wake on” section. You should see a “g” instead of a “d” now.

Sending WoL Magic Packets

To send out WoL requests, you have a cornucopia of options available. Depicus has an excellent series of lightweight tools to get the job done, including a GUI-based one for Windows and command-line-based one for both Windows and Mac OS.Wiki.tcl.tk has a great cross-platform lightweight script that handles the requests as well. DD-WRT has great WoL support, so if you don’t feel like downloading software to do it, you really don’t have to. Lastly, if you’re out and about, you can use your Android device to wake your computers. VIA HOW TO GEEK

Learning Photoshop, Part 3: Layers

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:30:46 +0000

As one of the hallmark features of Photoshop, Layers are the foundation of learning good photo editing techniques. In this article, we’ll go through their basic usage, as well as cover some basic types of layers.

Your layer panel is one of the most important within Photoshop. Whenever you use Photoshop, you’ll work spend a lot of time working in it.

The lasso tool creates a selection in any shape: in this case, the word “Layer” is drawn in. But the lasso does not create a new layer, even though we can use the lasso tool to move our selection around.

New layers can be created by clicking the button in the Layers panel. You can also press for a blank layer.

You can think of these layers as entirely new image files stacked on top of each other in your layers panel. By default, a new layer is transparent.

A simple Edit > Fill fills our selection with black. We’ve put it in a new layer, which will help us understand what a new layer is.

Our black fill exists in a new layer. We no longer need our selection, so pressing deselects it.

While this may look like a ruined image of the Apollo 11 rocket taking off, the drawn “Layer” text exists in its own separate layer, and is editable.

The Move Tool, shortcut key , illustrated above, is used for moving the layers selected in your layers panel.

The image of the shuttle still exists beneath the new filled layer. It can be moved to any position without destroying any part of the layer below it.

Individual layers can be moved, rotated, and transformed at your whim.

And again, since layers exist independent of each other, they do not have to affect each other.

Returning to a few older How-Tos, we can very simply add objects that have had their backgrounds removed to our image.

Simply use the Move Tool (shortcut key) to drag images from any open file to the one you’re working with. Photoshop will create a new layer in your target file with the dragged layer information in it.

This image has quickly become ridiculous. Clicking the in the side of the layers panel will hide any layer you don’t care to see.

Shortcut key will give you the Type tool, which can create a different type of layer. Live type is editable, and can be changed at any time without disturbing other layers.

Layers also have “Blending Options,” as illustrated in the contextual menu here. Right click on any of the layers in your layers panel to open this menu.

Blending Options takes us to the Layer Style dialog box. Here, we can add shadows and glows, all editable at any time through this same menu.

After adding a stroke to the text layer, other effects can also be added. A soft, white glow can make the text more legible against the complicated background.

Even with these layer effects, these layers are still editable.

The text can easily be set in a different font, with all layer effects staying active.

The layer effects look something like this in your layers panel.

In your layers panel, you can click the to create a different type of layer, called an Adjustment Layer.

CS5 brings up this “Adjustments” panel. I create a “Photo Filter” adjustment layer to give my image a sepia tone effect.

Adjustment layers also have a position in your layers panel and only affect the layers below. In other words, you can move your adjustment layers to affect the layers below it. I have my text above my Sepia Adjustment Layer, keeping it from turning sepia toned.

There are many options for Adjustment Layers, including the “Gradient” adjustment layer.

Gradients are great as adjustment layers, as they can easily be re-edited and adjusted. You’ll have numerous options for types of gradients, colors, angles, etc.

Adjustment layers can be hidden or edited by double clicking them in the layers panel.

Simple mastery of layers and the layers panel will greatly increase your ability to use Photoshop and get the effects you want to see in your photography.

Via MakeUseOf

Use An Ubuntu Live Cd To Recover Windows Files Easily

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:02:45 +0000

Accidentally deleting a file is a terrible feeling. Not being able to boot into Windows and undelete that file makes that even worse. Fortunately, you can recover deleted files on NTFS hard drives from an Ubuntu Live CD.

To show this process, we created four files on the desktop of a Windows XP machine, and then deleted them. We then booted up the same machine with the bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive that we created last week.

Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open a terminal by clicking Applications in the top left of the screen, and then selecting Accessories > Terminal.

To undelete our files, we first need to identify the hard drive that we want to undelete from. In the terminal window, type in:

sudo fdisk –l

and press enter.

What you’re looking for is a line that ends with HPSF/NTFS (under the heading System). In our case, the device is “/dev/sda1”. This may be slightly different for you, but it will still begin with /dev/. Note this device name.

If you have more than one hard drive partition formatted as NTFS, then you may be able to identify the correct partition by the size. If you look at the second line of text in the screenshot above, it reads “Disk /dev/sda: 136.4 GB, …” This means that the hard drive that Ubuntu has named /dev/sda is 136.4 GB large. If your hard drives are of different size, then this information can help you track down the right device name to use. Alternatively, you can just try them all, though this can be time consuming for large hard drives.

Now that you know the name Ubuntu has assigned to your hard drive, we’ll scan it to see what files we can uncover.

In the terminal window, type:

sudo ntfsundelete

and hit enter. In our case, the command is:

sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1

The names of files that can recovered show up in the far right column. The percentage in the third column tells us how much of that file can be recovered. Three of the four files that we originally deleted are showing up in this list, even though we shut down the computer right after deleting the four files – so even in ideal cases, your files may not be recoverable.

Nevertheless, we have three files that we can recover – two JPGs and an MPG.

Note: ntfsundelete is immediately available in the Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD. If you are in a different version of Ubuntu, or for some other reason get an error when trying to use ntfsundelete, you can install it by entering “sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs” in a terminal window.

To quickly recover the two JPGs, we will use the * wildcard to recover all of the files that end with .jpg.

In the terminal window, enter

sudo ntfsundelete –u –m *.jpg

which is, in our case,

sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –m *.jpg

The two files are recovered from the NTFS hard drive and saved in the current working directory of the terminal. By default, this is the home directory of the current user, though we are working in the Desktop folder.

Note that the ntfsundelete program does not make any changes to the original NTFS hard drive. If you want to take those files and put them back in the NTFS hard drive, you will have to move them there after they are undeleted with ntfsundelete. Of course, you can also put them on your flash drive or open Firefox and email them to yourself – the sky’s the limit!

We have one more file to undelete – our MPG.

Note the first column on the far left. It contains a number, its Inode. Think of this as the file’s unique identifier. Note this number.

To undelete a file by its Inode, enter the following in the terminal:

sudo ntfsundelete –u –i

In our case, this is:

sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –i 14159

This recovers the file, along with an identifier that we don’t really care about. All three of our recoverable files are now recovered.

However, Ubuntu lets us know visually that we can’t use these files yet. That’s because the ntfsundelete program saves the files as the “root” user, not the “ubuntu” user.

We can verify this by typing the following in our terminal window:

ls –l

We want these three files to be owned by ubuntu, not root. To do this, enter the following in the terminal window:

sudo chown ubuntu

If the current folder has other files in it, you may not want to change their owner to ubuntu. However, in our case, we only have these three files in this folder, so we will use the * wildcard to change the owner of all three files.

sudo chown ubuntu *

The files now look normal, and we can do whatever we want with them.

Hopefully you won’t need to use this tip, but if you do, ntfsundelete is a nice command-line utility. It doesn’t have a fancy GUI like many of the similar Windows programs, but it is a powerful tool that can recover your files quickly.

How To Custom Build Your Own PC On A Budget – Part 1

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:15:29 +0000

Greetings and salutations to each and every one of you readers. This post I am about to write is basically showing you what I am doing at the moment in my spare time.

You see I absolutely enjoy every aspect of computing and technology. Some people may enjoy horse riding, soccer, baking, frolicking through grassy fields. (As you do), but I just love technology.

Basically I’m still a student but have a couple of hours a week with an IT company. I upgraded my current computer about a year ago, changed the motherboard, processor and ram. At the moment my current specs are:

1) Motherboard =Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 (socket M2) Nvidia nForce 570 SLI Chipset

2) CPU = AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, 3.0 Ghz

3) RAM = 4.0 GB Corsair DDR2 @ 201 MHz 5-5-5-18

4) Graphics = 256MB GeForce 7600 GT (x2)

5) Hard Drives = 200GB Seagate SCSI (x2)

6) Operating System = Windows 7 Ultimate 32 Bit

However, as you can see even though i upgraded the MB, CPU, and RAM only a year ago, already they are running out of date, especially with regards to my graphics cards, any new release games are not playable off my 256MB GeForce 7600 GT (x2). So I said to myself, that’s it!!

I’m gonna have to build a new computer.

So I spent about a week reading reviews, viewing specs, and comparing the various components. Then I picked each component that I wanted, except the video card. Now I buy each component as an can afford it. Then each time I buy a new component, I will post a new post updating you on what I’ve done. The reason I have not selected a video card is because, ATI seem to be miles ahead of nVidia at the moment, which doesn’t really sit right with me since i am a huge nVidia fan. ATI have 2GB GDDR5 cards with direct x11 support (ATI 5970). nVidia are still mainly on 1GB GDDR3 with direct x10 support. So I do want to wait to see what nVidias new Fermi range will have in store.

Ok, so. . . .so far I have bought 3 components, the Case, Motherboard and CPU (central processing unit). You’ll notice too, my supplier of choice was Komplett.ie. You will find the link to each component listed.

Here is the breakdown:

1) Case: Cooler Master HAF 922………………………………………………………[Link]

2) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6, P55, Socket-1156……….[Link]

3) Processor: Intel i5 Quad-Core Processor i5-750, 2.66 Ghz Quad Core….[Link]

OK, so before I go on to show you pictures and instructions on how I fitted the components, I should probably explain, why I decided to pick these exact components. By the way if you disagree with why I did something a certain way or why I chose one component over another, please feel free to leave a comment at the end of this post.

The Case -€120

So the reason I picked that exact case, the HAF 922, was because firstly, it looks amazing, lovely bright red LED’s, nice black finish looks like a mean sith machine. Ha. The other reason is because of it’s expandability – 10 drive bays, 5 external, 5 internal. Also It has an extreme fan cooling system with a Front 200mm Fan, Top 200mm Fan, and a Rear 120mm Fan, with the option for another 200mm on the side panel, and also the option to switch all 200mm fans with 120mm x2.

The Motherboard -€250

The Reason i bought that particular Motherboard was because It supports the long awaited USB 3.0, which brags to be up to 10 times faster, however this really isn’t true, most reviews claim it to be about 3 times faster than standard USB 2.0. Also it has support for SATA 6.0Gbps, yes this technically should be twice as fast as Standard SATA 3.0GBps that we are all use to. The only problem with these is that there isn’t many drives out yet that are 6.0GBps, so at the moment it’s not hugely beneficial, likewise with the USB 3.0. However in a few months or perhaps almost a year, the productions of these devices will be rampant, you see at the moment the companies i.e Seagate, Western Digital, etc all need to get rid of their current stock before selling these new technologies. Also this motherboard supports up to 16GB of SDDR3 RAM, dual channel. And Finally it’s equipped with 1x ATA, 8x SATA, 2x E-SATA, 14x USB, 3x Firewire.

The Processor -€185

Finally the reason I bought the i5-750 Processor. I was stuck between choosing AMD and Intel, Ive been using AMD for most of my life and haven’t had much trouble. However Intel just seems to be miles ahead in technology. Yes AMD are cheaper, however their flagship processor the Phenom ll x4 processor still matched my new Intels i5- 750. Thus, showing that Intels 4th or 5th best processor is matched to AMD’s greatest processor, also the fact that AMD almost got forced out of the market by Intel, was also a little bit unnerving. If Intel wasn’t forced to pay AMD 1.25 billion, who knows where they would be!

Most reviews even show that the i5-750 still out performs the phenom ll x4 by a small bit in all areas, except for gaming where the phenom ll x4 edges its way a minuscule amount past the i5. However, Intel still have the i7 family which consists of 4 different processors which are all better than AMD and the i5′s, these however range in price between €220 – €850. While AMD Phenom ll x4 prices come in around €160

The Build:

The Motherboard and How To Install It

OK so here’s what i did:

The pictures explain most of it, but ill explain what I can anyway.

Firstly I remove the two thumb screws from the back of the case so that I could remove the side panel.

Then I lined up the other twist screws with the Mother Board ATX layout. (These are nine screws which the motherboard then sits on)

After that I then removed the motherboard from it’s packaging, and sat it down lining up the screws. Also ensuring that the rear ports of the motherboard lined up with the rear port slot of the case.

Next, and this is very important, you need to screw in the motherboard, but this isn’t as straight forward as you might think. You do NOT fully screw in 1 screw at a time, this will cause the motherboard to not line up and could end up permanently damaging it. You need to just give each screw a few twists so that you just feel it threading, then you do that with the screw directly opposite it. For example if you start with the screw at the very top left, then your 2nd screw should be bottom right, and so on. Then when they are all threaded you can slowly screw them all in each one a bit at a time, until eventually they fit snug. As seen in the image.

The Processor (CPU)

The next job was to insert the processor, this part must be done with precision and accuracy! Why?

Well if you discharge static from your body through the processor it’s fried, and if you’ve bought the i7-965 Extreme, then that’s €850 that you will not be getting back.

Also if the processor is not inserted the correct way, you could bend the little pins, rendering the chip useless.

So basically, yes it is a square but your processor will come with instructions. On mine i had to line up a small triangle, the processor basically sits right in. Then the retention clip is brought down, securing it.

Yes you do need to exert quite a bit of force on this retention bracket, some people think they are in fact crushing their processor, but listen, the retention clip is there for a reason, to ensure every tiny little pin is in contact with the motherboard, of course it’s going to need quite a lot of pressure.

This image shows how it should look.

The CPU Cooler

The next a final step now comes, the fitting of the heatsink or CPU cooler as some like to call it. Either way something tells me no matter what you call it, it will still complete the same task. Cool your CPU. Ha

Anyway, i know you can buy better and quieter ones, and that you can even buy water cooling ones such as the Corsair H50 Hydro, which I’ve seen in action and must admit its pretty damn good.

However I stuck with Intels standard heat sink for cost sake. Yes it is included when you purchase a CPU.

It’s pretty straight forward, just PLEASE make sure there is cooling paste on your heat sink before you fit it, this aids in firstly holding it together but also for transferring the heat from the CPU to the heat sink.

Basically, all you do is sit it on top of the CPU lining up the 4 push screws and then turn each of them in a clock wise direction, nothing too much to it.

This image shows the heatsink fitted, the other image shows a view from the rear of the MB. and case

Also this was another reason i liked the HAF 922 Case, you can take off the other side panel and there is an access hole to the back of your motherboard.

This is very handy for say fitting a Corsair H50 Hydro, because it comes with a retention bracket that fits to the back of your board to hold the water cooling system on. With this handy access hole, it means you do not need to remove your MB from its case. Neat, eh?

Anyway that pretty much concludes part 1, I shall update ye when I purchase the next part, which will most likely be the RAM or PSU (power supply unit).

Please leave a comment after you read this whether it be commendation or criticism, I really don’t mind, but criticism helps me to learn.

Also if you have any questions regarding this post that you do not wish to post publicity, you can contact Tech-n-life, or myself (ex13mail@gmail.com).

Support Sunday: Update Microsoft Software Offline – IT Techie Tips

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:57:40 +0000

It’s a sad sad fact, that there are still many places that do not have a decent broadband connection. Of course, places like Finland, with their 1MB line minimum law, this doesn’t apply to. But for the rest of us – it’s fact!

Many times, when on the road fixing peoples computers, invariably, I have to update a fresh install of Anti-virus software. As you know , this takes forever the first time. To get around this I had been downloading Microsoft’s Security Essentials offline update file. Of course, you have to grab a latest copy before you head, it still saves a lot of time.

Well, it would be great to be able to do this for all the software I install. And now you can.

WSUS Offline

WSUS means Windows Software Update Service. Its an app/software server that allows admins to download one copy of the latest Windows updates, approve it and send it to clients.

WSUS offline.. does this in a similar way but offline of course!!! It’s now at version 6.3 and its a small enough download. Open the ZIP file and extract the contents to a folder on your desktop. Double click your Application file and this is what you get:

Click for larger image

You have many options from here. You can download the files to ISO’s ready for DVD burning or to your USB key.

When you are then on-site, you can load up your offline files and you will something like this:

Head over and grab it so you can continue your conquest for the family hero title!!

Website: WSUSOffline

The Quick Way To Get To The Command Prompt In Windows 7

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:24:53 +0000

In the old days, there was a plug in for your right click menu that was called Command Prompt Here. It simple meant that if you right-clicked inside a folder or on the desktop and chose this option, then you be at the command prompt but also in the current folder. This was a real time saver because you didn’t have to go hunt down CMD.EXE in the start menu.

In Windows 7, this is built right in. All you have to do is hold down the shift key before you right click and then you have it. Its a very useful thing to know if you use CMD a lot. It’s also worth noting that this opens the command prompt with administrator privileges, which is another bonus.

7 Steps To Save Your Phone If It Gets Water Damaged

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:24:24 +0000

Its the most “sinking” feeling. When you think you can do three things at once – do the dishes, talk and hold the phone, the inevitable happens. Phone drops – you run to the corner and cry for mommy….

(Please note – this also applies if you drop your phone in the toilet whilst trying to text and pee at the same time. Ya, we know about that too.)

I worked in Carphone Warehouse for 6 or 7 years. If there was one thing that drove me crazy was people bringing in phones that were clearly water-damaged and have that puppy look of “I don’t know, it just won’t work”. However, having worked there I did learn quite quickly what to do when this awful tragedy strikes and this has worked on numerous phones for me, whether smart or dumb phones.

The Steps

Step 1 – Open the whole phone ASAP. Remove the SIM card, Memory Card, Battery and any external covers, slides or extras.

Advanced Step – If you are brave and have the tools, open up every part of the phone and remove keypads, screens etc.

Step 2 – If there is obvious pools of water, try to dab them out or even shake it out.

Step 3 - Wrap each item in a towel

Step 4 - Place in a hot-press. In Ireland, a hot-press is our airing cupboard. I don’t know what other people call it but its the place where all the towels are and the big water cylinder.

Step 5 – Leave it here for at least 24 hours but better if left for 48 hours. Obviously the heating system should be on so this room stays warm.

Step 6 - Look over every part and make sure there are no water droplets or moisture spots. Lightly dry off the parts.

Step 7 - Assemble the phone but do not put in the SIM or Memory Card yet. Put in the battery and turn on. Test the phone and see how it is. If all is well then go ahead in put in the cards.

If it doesn’t work following these steps, then by the time you power it up, it’s probably too late and the damage is permanent.

Something else you can try is putting the phone in a bowl of dry rice. The rice will pull out the moisture.

DO NOT use a hairdryer – it will permanently damage the phone.

DO NOT use the microwave.

Disclaimer: This information is purely my experience and I am not liable for any damages whatsoever if you follow this advice.

Did You Try Turning It Off And On?

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:54:57 +0000

The guys from The IT Crowd

This is my favourite line from The IT Crowd and a line use every single day. In fact, sometimes 10 times a day. When I provide IT support, I invariably find that people do not try this simple solution to most problems.

One day, I got a call to come fix someones computer. I drove 30 mins to their home, did a two minute meet and greet, did a thirty second “refuse-coffee” and was shown the problem. It took the person 5 minutes to explain the problem. So, I sat down restarted the PC and guess what…. Exactly. She paid me to come all the way out there to do that.

So why does it work?

Simply because of the way computers/windows/processes work. The more things you install and the more things you open the more processes that are started up. When a process or application goes rogue, then this invariably uses up a lot of CPU power and memory leaks. It uses up space that is normally available for other applications. This problem is also caused when an application doesn’t shutdown correctly.

So when you restart, you close these unnecessary rogue processes and buy back your memory and CPU reserves. It should be the first thing you do if you don’t know how to stop processes manually. However, thats not as hard as it looks and was covered here in this article -

How To Deal With A Slow Computer Using Task Manager And Process Freezer

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€5 Hack For Thrifty Photographers – Make A 10 Stop Filter

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:24:38 +0000

I keep an eye on a Flickr photostream by Victor Walsh. He covers quite a variety of subjects with professionalism. He just posted this hack with some parts he bought from eBay. The total cost was €5. Simply put, he glued some stuff together and got a great result – a 10 Stop Filter.

Here is the shot he accomplished with this hack with his own words.

Click For Larger Image

I finally got round to trying out my homemade 10 stop filter.

I glued a cheap eBay ND filter onto a 10 stop welders glass.

Total cost €5.

Not the best landscape but good enough for a test.

Next time i will reduce my ISO to 100 and lengthen the exposure to 30 secs or more.

You can accomplish this with some simple “hackery” with this shopping list:

Welding Glass €1.50
Filter €2.00
Superlgue €0.50
Postage €1.00

Simple!! But a clever use of resources in this economy.

Link to original photo

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Learning Photoshop To Get Great Family Portraits

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:51:43 +0000

Disclaimer: This post was written by Bakari Chavanu on MakeUseOf. Link at the end of the post.

If your family is anything like mine, making a family portrait is almost as hard as winning the lottery. We manage to get a portrait done once a year, and it’s usually a few days before or after the Christmas holiday. Here are a few of my portrait photography tips from my recent session.

First, let’s talk a little about the set up. If you’re looking to make a formal portrait, try to do so when when you and your family are all dressed for a formal occasion. This way, family members don’t whine about having to dress up just to take pictures.

Everyone should not wear the exact same color of clothing, but colors should be complementary. In my experience, plaids and really dark colors don’t always work well. And sometimes, as you notice in the photo below, details can be lost in bright red clothing when a flash is your main light source.

1. Lighting

If you can make the family portrait outdoors (early morning or late afternoon) you can get away with not using an external flash, or perhaps use it for fill light outdoors. If you‘re shooting indoors, using an external flash on your camera is highly recommended. Shooting the flash through an umbrella will help with softening the light on the subjects. But don’t let the lack of this equipment keep you from trying indoor portrait shoots. If you can arrange to make photos with your family positioned near a well-lit window (shooting at say 400-800 ISO) that might also get you effective shots.

2. Preparing for the Shoot

Your family is probably no different than most people when it comes to taking photos; they’re generally not patient. They want to look great in the photo, but they may not have patience while you fumble around with the camera. So set up your equipment and do a few test shots before you assemble everyone.

By all means, shoot your portraits with your camera on a tripod. If you plan on being in the photo, you will need to use the self-timer on your camera or a remote device that triggers your camera’s shutter.

The challenge with flash photography is that photos can come out too bright or too dark. Reviewing images on the back of your camera’s LCD screen will not always give you an accurate picture of how well exposed your photo is. Images typically always look okay on the LCD screen. So my suggestion is use your camera’s histogram and take several shots at different exposure and light settings.

Fixing Photos in Photoshop

Though I took several family photos during the session, the one we liked most, as you can see, was over exposed. The off-camera flash was too strong. In other shots the exposure settings were better, but the content of the photo was not to our liking. This is the nature and challenge of photography. So here are a few suggestions for fixing the problem.

I used a relatively wide angle lens and an off-camera flash positioned behind a white umbrella to soften the lighting. I would have preferred a dark background instead of the white wall with its numerous smudges, but that’s the limitations I had to work within.

As we can see, the photo is over exposed, particularly on our faces. The distance between the camera and subjects made it difficult to crop the photo in-camera. Thus I intentionally shot wide so I could have room for cropping later.

I actually shot the photo in RAW mode, but I’m going to assume that many readers of this article shoot in traditional JPEG mode.

3. Crop the Photo

Opening a duplicate of the original photo in Photoshop, I first cropped for an 8 x 10 size. This of course also cropped out unwanted background areas. Making a specific size crop also makes it better for printing.

4. Fix the Exposure

There are many ways to address exposure problems in Photoshop. In this approach, I used the Levels Adjustment layer (Image>Adjustments>Layers.) There’s a lot that can be done with this tool, but in general, the sliders control the shadow, midtones, and highlights of an image. You move these sliders to get the desired exposure. You want to be careful not to lose detail in the shadow or highlight areas of the image. Every image is different, so just move the sliders back and forth until you get your desired results.

5. Detailing Shadow and Highlight

Another useful tool in Photoshop for dealing with over exposed (or underexposed) images is the Shadow and Highlight tool. A similar tool exist and works better in RAW image editors like Adobe Camera RAW or Adobe Lightroom. But it can often work with JPEG images in Photoshop.

Shadow and Highlight is found in the menu bar, Image>Adjustments>Shadow Highlight. Be sure to duplicate the Layers Adjustment layer because Shadow and Highlight is destructive. If you have never used the tool, when it opens the default settings of 50% will be set for lightening the shadows. But don’t worry, you’re in control.

Simply move the Shadow and Highlights sliders to make the adjustments you need. Each photo is different, but you can start by taking the sliders all the way to the left and then slowly pulling them to the right. As you can see, this tool helped bring back detail in the over exposed highlight areas. I made sure to maintain the detail of the shadow areas, especially with my daughter’s hair. This and the Levels Adjustment tool also helps increase contrast in the image.

6. Retouching

This image didn’t need sharpening. The major retouching I did involved smoothing out and softening our skin tones. Here’s one popular approach:

Duplicate the top layer of the image.
Go to Filers menu and select Gaussian Blur and move the slider to 8-12 pixels, for a relatively strong blur.
Reduce the opacity of the filter by 50% or to the level of smoothness you desire.
Now add a layers mask to the layer, by clicking on Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This puts a black mask over your blurred layer. Change the Foreground color in Tools to white.
Select the Brush tool and decrease the size of the brush to say 52% and the Hardness kept at 0. (You can right or control-click on the image to make changes in the diameter and hardness of the brush.
Use the brush to bring back (or paint) the detail in the eyes, eyebrows, and hair of the subject.

For a quick portrait session, I’m pretty pleased with the adjustments made to the photo. As with any photo shoot, I strongly suggest that you take as many shots possible so that you can have more photos to work with.

Are you the family photographer in your household? How often do get portraits made, and what challenges if any do you face? Share your own opinion in the comments section below!

This article appeared on MakeUseOf first and has many other fantastic articles like it.

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Support Sunday: How To Join Two MKV Movie Files

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:28:48 +0000

I recently ripped a Star Wars movie to my PC. The software I used only gave me the option to split the files into max of 4.2GB. This left me with two files. Which is fine if I name them correctly however I don’t like this. So, I went on the hunt to fix this. Back to one of my favourite sites, Mashables, I found what I was looking for. They had a short article pointing to some software that worked a treat.

MKVMerge

Its quite simple software.It is available for Windows, Linux and MAC. The download link is for Windows, however the rest are available on their site. Links below.

Here is a simple step by step article.

1) Download Here [WINDOWS]

2) Click ADD and find your movie

3) Click APPEND and find part two of the movie and so forth

4) Choose a Filename and Folder with the browse button on the bottom

5) Click Start muxing excusing my ignorance as to what muxing means.

That’s it. Allow it to finish the process and to save space remember to delete the no no longer needed part files.

I found this software as simple as VDUB’s software for appending AVI files.

Download Windows Version

Link to site for other versions – MKVtoolnix

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Support Sunday: How To Set Up And Optimize uTorrent

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Many people use uTorrent and never actually set it up for their type of connection or needs. So here we are going to delve into it in a little detail to get you your way. Hopefully , you will be able to get faster and more reliable results with this information. Bear in mind, it is not supposed to be an exhaustive walk-through, but rather to suit novices.

Torrents? uTorrent?

Without being overly technical, I want to explain this in simple terms, explaining just enough for you to get going. A torrent is a really small file that contains the link back information to the original file/program/movie/show/album that you are looking to download. The torrent file is conveniently label abc123.torrent. The file contains the name and sizes and more importantly the location of the files out on the internets. FYI- downloading torrents is NOT illegal. Downloaded pirated software etc., is.
A magnet link – is and I quote Wikipedia:

Such a link typically identifies a file not by location or name, but by content; more precisely, by the content’s hash value.

Since it refers to a file based on content or metadata, rather than by location, a magnet link can be considered a kind of Uniform Resource Name, rather than the more common Uniform Resource Locators. Although it could be used for other applications, it is particularly useful in a peer-to-peer context, because it allows resources to be referenced without the need for a continuously available host.

As far as you and I are concern, its a faster, more direct way to download with peer to peer.

So first of all, download uTorrent here. Run through the setup installation accepting the defaults, except that last option. This offers you the Ask toolbar. Make your own decision here bearing in mind that accepting it supports the free uTorrent. If you don’t like, uninstall it after.

Now we’ll get started

Start up uTorrent by clicking on its icon or find it in the start menu.

When it opens a one time only pop up appears called a speed guide. It is designed to help you choose your speed settings that will optimize the running of uTorrent. In the first dropdown box, you have a list of speeds that say xx/256, xx/512 etc.

You want to choose the one that suits your UPLOAD speed. I have a 7 meg line at home and an upload of 512. So I chose xx/512. You can choose accordingly.

Next is the port number. This is very important to get decent speeds. As you can see in the screen shot, it automatically chose 34999 for me. This is fine, however, I need to go to my router and create a port forward to my desktop/PC IP address for that particular port. Next Sunday, I will write about how to configure your router for port forwarding. When that’s done, I will update this post on getting a green icon in uTorrent. In the meantime, ask in the comments below and I will answer you.

Click use selected settings.

Now go to Options > Preferences.

Rather than me writing this out word for word, just follow the screen shots from here and copy each screen and make it identical to your setup. I will circle my changes:

Click the Associate Button and Start with Windows

Now head to UI Settings:

I like being able to double click files to start/stop them. Saves extra right-clicks

Move on to the directories tab:

Do this, because it makes finding and organizing everything a lot easier later on. However, these are up to you.

Now the connections tab, but you have this part done earlier.

The blue messy bit is my actual port. You chose this earlier.

Bandwidth Tab:

These are my settings. You can see my Upload is a max 10. This means it will upload slower, but won't choke your network so much. My download is 350 which allows me to still browse the net comfortably whilst downloading. This is on a 7 meg line. You need to reduce these according to your connection. If I had a 1 meg line, I would reduce my download speed to 50.

The rest of the settings are up to you. The queuing area is how many concurrent downloads will happen at once. If you leave that low, you generally have a better experience.

Hope you have fun with this and follow on to this post tomorrow on how to download a torrent and use it -

How To Download Movies And TV Shows Torrents

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Photoshop Tips: Removing A Background From An Image

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:41:44 +0000

I personally find Photoshop daunting. I use it a lot in web design and so forth. But I find it a little overwhelming. There is just so much available and so much to forget. My problem is that I will use it a lot for a month then not at all for two months. By the time month four comes, I stare blankly for ten minutes. Except for the basics, the only way I sometimes get through it is by using specific guides.

MakeUseOf have great guides available. Today they wrote up another equally useful Photoshop guide. Its a detailed how to on removing the background from a photo and inserting a new one.

You can change this image:

to this:

You can really have some fun with this guide. Head over to MakeUseOf and get photo chopping

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Support Sunday: How To Root Your New HTC Hero Safely And Why You Want To

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:16:39 +0000

I know posts have been a little quiet lately but there is little happening this time of year and I always try to only post relevant news. This however is relevant and important. Many of you are most likely going to unwrap an Android phone this year. And for a couple of days you’ll have lots of fun.

However, you are going to quickly learn that you handset is limited. Yes, I know it has great specs and does amazing things, but you’ll realized you’ve been locked out of certain features and add-ons. Now the “people” will have you think that this is for a good reason… so you don’t break anything. And maybe they are right in certain respects but my experience has proven that if you read, read and read again, then follow each step closely, this is a walk in the park.

It’s not so scary!!

I’ll be straight up.. I was scared to do this to my lovely new HTC Hero. I have flashed plenty of windows mobile handsets 100′s of times. I’ve unlocked some of the most difficult handsets and forced upgrades on renationalized phones. But, I thought, what if I muck up.. ah.. my phone!! But then, I remember that this is what is fun and said SO WHAT!! Well that was all for nothing.

First of all, what does it mean to root your phone? Its akin to having a Windows desktop and not having administrator privileges. Yes, you know what that’s like – frustrating!! Rooting allows you full rights over everything and means you can install anything.

Why would you do this?

Because you can
Because its most likely still stuck on 1.5
Because you can use other software like Market Enabler
Because HTC’s stock ROM sucks after ten minutes and slows down so much

This is the most important tip: BACKUP!

Nandroid is a fantastic piece of software for backing up everything. A Nandroid restore puts the handset back to EXACTLY the state it was in before you flashed a new ROM. So if you don’t like the new ROM, then ten minutes later, its like you never touched it. I’ll explain later how to do this.

Although the rest of this information is based on my personal experience, I got all my help from theunlockr.com who did an article on this very subject.

First – Watch this video but note the change in the instructions from step 6.

Second - Go back and watch the video if you didn’t already! I mean it!

Third - follow these steps:

I. Read Before You Begin

1.This ONLY works on the HTC Hero and the Sprint Hero!
2. Also, if you have already Rooted your HTC Hero without using the 1 click method, then do one of the quick unrooting procedures before beginning to start fresh. Head to their site for more info on this.
3. Your Hero MUST be on Cupcake to proceed, use the Magic unrooting process to get to a fresh cupcake install!
4. IF YOUR HAVE FIRMWARE 2.73.x.x OR ABOVE, PLEASE USE THIS PROCEDURE HERE BEFORE YOU DO THIS ONE.
How To Downgrade Your Hero (So It Can Be Rooted)

II. Let’s Get Started

1. On your phone, goto Settings, Applications, and make sure Unknown source is checked ON.

2. On your phone, goto Settings, SD card and phone storage, and click Unmount SD card.

3. Then click Format SD card (it should automatically remount after this).

4. Plug the phone into the compuer via USB, then pull down the notification bar and click on the SD card notification. Then click mount.

5. Download this APK and recovery image and save it to your computer:

FlashRec.apk (Updated 09/26/2009)
Amon Ra’s Hero Recovery Image (Updated 11.18.09)

6. UPDATE: Do NOT follow the video instructions from this point on (use them as a visual aid only!) We have recplaced the Cyanogen Recovery Image with the Amon Ra one so when it says anything about the Cyanogen Recovery Image, just ignore that and put the Amon Ra one in it’s place. This is VERY IMPORTANT when typing into the FlashRec program. You will NOT be typing what is written in the video, type what is written here in this procedure instead!

7. Save both the Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img and the FlashRec.apk to your computer, then copy them both to your SD card (do NOT put them inside any folders on the SD card, just put them on the SD card itself).

8. Unplug the phone from the computer once they are downloaded to the SD card.

8. Goto the Market and download Linda File Manager or any file manager program if you do not already have one.

9. Open the file manager and goto SDCard and then find the FlashRec apk file and click it. If asked tell it to use Package Installer to open it. It should automatically install the apk.

10. Open the FlashRec program and click on Backup Recovery Image and wait for it to finish.

11. Once done, click on the empty text box in the FlashRec program and type (again remember we have replaced the recovery image from the one in the video so type what is written here, NOT what is written in the video!):

/sdcard/Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.3.img

Then click on the Flash Custom RecoveryImage button and wait for it to finish.

12. Turn off the phone and turn it on into Recovery mode by holding down Home and Power to turn it on (keep holding until the recovery screen comes up has a bunch of text on a black background). So long as that screen comes up, you have done it correctly and can now go on to the How to Load a ROM video for your appropriate device!

13. To get Root access you MUST go to the next video mentioned above and load a custom ROM.

Okay… so that wasn’t so hard… but what now… Well you need to get hold of a decent ROM.. I am using the Eclair 2.1 ROM from here and it is really fast and superb. But when you get to the stage of turning off your phone and pressing Power + Home to get to the recovery menu, MAKE SURE YOU RUN NANDROID.

Once you’ve done that, then flash away.

Please note this disclaimer: I am not responsible in any way if you damage your handset. I have pointed out that this is easy to do, however I have a lot of experience with this stuff. I offer no warranty whatsoever on this information. I am happy to answer any questions you have on this. Have fun.

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Really Useful Photography Tricks Courtesy Of Lifehacker [Photography]

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:07:37 +0000

Whether making your own lens hood to create custom bokeh, breathing like a sniper to get a blur-free photo, or angling your body to look the best in pictures, we shared some great photography hacks this year. Software and Photoshop tricks are great, but they’re a poor substitution for doing things in-camera. Over the last year we shared a variety of hacks for taking better photos, looking better in photos, and ways to get professional results without spending your rent money on camera accessories.

Create Your Own Bokeh for Beautiful Photo Effects

What’s a bokeh you say? It’s that oh-so-wonderful fuzziness in the background of photographs with a shallow depth of field and accompanying starry highlights. You can create you own bokeh effects with a little craftiness.

Position Your Tongue Properly to Look Good in Photos

We live in a culture of oversharing, so odds are someone, somewhere will be snapping and posting photos taken of you at various events. To help ensure you look your best, heed where you position your tongue.

Take Better Pictures by Treating Your Still Camera Like It’s Video

People often lament that they “just missed it!” upon seeing they failed to capture a pivotal moment in the action. You can avoid missing the action by treating your still camera like a video camera.

Avoid Mediocre Portraits with These Tricks

You have a camera and a willing subject, but you’re not sure how to break your portraits out of the flat blandness that plagues many snapshots. Avoid boring compositions with these tips.

Set Up a High Speed Photography Studio in Your Garage

Many a photography enthusiast has assumed the equipment necessary is far too expensive for quality high speed photography captures. A high speed capture studio on the cheap can be had with this handy guide.

Create Abstract Light Art by Snapping a Camera-Toss Photo

Making abstract wallpaper and gorgeous slow-exposure shots doesn’t require a bunch of design apps or photography lessons. Learn how to literally toss your camera to make abstract light art.

Be A Better Photographer On Vacation

Whether you head 30 or 3000 miles away, you’ll want to bring back great photos of your vacation. The New York Times posts questions and answers on how to achieve great vacation photos.

Take Better Self-Portraits

Taking a good self-portrait is both a handy skill and a way to expand your photographic repertoire. Save your next profile picture from the camera-held-at-arms-length cliche with these tips.

DIY Tennis Ball Photography Stabilization Unit

DIY web site Instructables details how to make an image stabilizing unit to supplement your steady hand using a tennis ball and a few nuts and bolts.

Shoot Better Nighttime Pictures

Daytime photo tricks don’t always translate when you’re trying to capture the perfect night shot. The Photography Bay web site outlines tips for taking a stellar post-sunset shot without relying on a tripod or expensive flash system.

Be More Photogenic by Forgetting About the Camera

When the camera comes out, a lot of people instinctively declare that they look awful in pictures. Learn how to be more photogenic and put your best face forward.

Breathe Like a Sniper to Take Better Photos in Low Light

Steady hands are critical to taking low light photographs. Breath like a sniper to make sure you snap the shot when your hand is least jittery.

Create a Basic Ring Flash

If the DIY Fiber Optic Ring Flash we wrote about required too many specialist parts for your taste, check out this much simpler remix. The construction is easy and done with common household items.

Use Composition Rules to Take Better Photos

Photography is a creative art, no doubt, but creative doesn’t mean doing everything willy-nilly however you want. Use these basic rules of composition to give your photos an extra boost of visual appeal.

DIY Beauty Dish Enhances Your Portraits

Beauty dishes are great flash modifiers for portrait photographs, but even a cheap model will set you back at least $100. Skip it—a surprisingly effective DIY beauty dish costs less than $20.

Create Stunning High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photos

Gizmodo’s John Mahoney explains how to take high dynamic range (HDR) photos so that the results of your photograph more accurately recreate what you were seeing when you snapped the shutter.

Create Studio Quality Photos Using Natural Light

You don’t need a blockbuster budget to get high-quality light for your portraits. By coaxing the sun to help in your photographic endeavors, you can create stunning portraits on a tiny budget.

Make a DIY Photography Light Box with K’Nex

Lightboxes aren’t just for the professionals any longer. Using them to illuminate your Craigslist and eBay listings can help make a sale, and amateur photogs can get professional-looking shots with one. Create your own using K’nex and a little know how.

Take Great Panoramic Pictures with Any Camera

Panoramic software has come a long way toward making panoramic images child’s work. Great software or not, there’s no substitution for good source material. Take better panoramic pictures with these tips

Take Better Pictures by Studying Studio Layouts

Whether you’re interested in learning more about lighting to add to your photography skill set or you’re just curious how proper studio lighting works, this handy guide will provide some photo-enhancing insight.

DIY Tilt-Shift Photography Lens

Tilt-shift lenses create a great miniature effect on photographs of everyday things. The problem? These specialized lenses are insanely expensive (think $1,000 range). This video from Make demonstrates how to make a DIY tilt-shift lens on the cheap.

Take Awesome Sunset Photographs

Sunsets are one of nature’s more spectacular displays, and a good one is worth preserving with a photograph. Take pictures that will capture the perfect dusk moment with these photography tips.

Create a Flash Diffuser Using An Empty Cigarette Packet

The right flash can make or break your shot. Unfortunately, not all built-in flashes are created equal. DIY web site Instructables demonstrates how to create a worthy on-the-spot flash diffuser using an empty cigarette packet.

Make a DIY Macro Lens from Old Binoculars

A high-end macro lens for your camera can easily run upwards of a thousand dollars, but you can make a super-simple macro lens for a few bucks out of old binoculars.

Photography via [Lifehacker]

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Support Sunday: How To Transfer Files From An Old PC

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:11:41 +0000

When you buy a new computer – like I did recently – you’ll want to transfer most of your existing files over to the new computer. A lot of people, who spend their time gathering vacation pictures and family videos, will want to make a big move leaving nearly nothing behind. Others, like myself, only keep the essential stuff; some documents they’re still working on and a few application installations they’ll be needing shortly. No matter how much you plan on taking along, you want to do it quickly. Spend the minimal amount of time before you can cut that old hardware loose. There are a number of ways to do this, and we’re taking a look at five of the ways how to transfer files from one computer to another. Depending on what you’re working with, some might be better than others.

Use An External Storage Media

The standard way of backing up data. These days, everyone has a USB stick, or a at least a computer that can burn CDs and DVDs. An even better alternative are external hard drives which you can connect over USB – these often combine crazy speed with incredible storage.

There are three back-up patterns you can follow. Often the easiest way is to create categorical folders to put your files in – movies, pictures, documents, applications, and so on. Back on your new computer, you can easily put these wherever you want to have them. A duplicate copy requires even less effort, but you’ll be passing up on an excuse to (finally?) categorize your data. Just copy the folders your files are in – Desktop, My Documents, etc. – and you’ll be able to merge them with your new system’s counterparts. Too lazy to do it manually? You can always use back-up software suites to do the work for you. These are often able to return your file to right location on your new disk, but are especially useful if you plan on doing periodical back-ups (e.g. every two weeks).

Share Over LAN

You can also use your existing home network to transfer your files, given that both of your systems are connected. The speed can vary from ‘incredibly fast’ on a wired network to ‘pretty damn slow’ on a wireless one. First and foremost, you’ll need to enable the sharing of your hard drive. In Mac OS X, just go to System Preferences -> Sharing, and the rest is pretty obvious. In Windows, the process is quite easy as well. Browse to My Computer -> (right-click) Properties on your hard drive. In the Sharing tab, you’ll need to enable file sharing for the folder. Below is a screenshot of how it looks like on a Windows 7 PC.

Vista and 7 — If your disk isn’t Shared, go to the Network and Sharing Screen and open the ‘Advanced Sharing’ settings. Here you’ll be able to turn on File and Printer Sharing.

Got everything set up? On your new system, you should be able to find the drive shared in ‘Network’. When opening the hard drive, you’ll probably be asked for a password. From there on, you’re free to go. Copy the files and folders as if the network drive is just another folder.

If you don’t have a home network, or don’t feel like using your wireless one, you can directly connect two computers with a crossover ethernet cable. This one looks exactly the same as your everyday internet cable, but has a slightly different wiring. You can buy these for a few bucks in most hardware and computer stores.

Use an EasyTransfer Cable

Windows Easy Transfer is a new application that comes installed in most newer Microsoft Windows operation system. One way to use the program is with an EasyTransfer cable, a special double “male” USB cable.

The cable, that can be bought online and in computer stores, facilitates file transfers between two Windows systems and works great for our purpose. If you don’t mind spending the extra money, this is an option you might want to consider.

Connect the HDD Manually

This is the way I ended up doing it – the geeky way. If you don’t have an external HDD casing, why not make one? By taking out your old hard drive and using the right connections, you’ll quickly have it hooked via USB to your new system. This has a number of advantages – the speed is well enjoyable, you don’t need (much) extra hardware, and you can copy the files straight from point A to B.

All you need are (depending on your hard drive model) a SATA to USB or an IDE to USB adapter. These can be bought separate or together with an external hard drive casing – which is often even cheaper. If you’ve got an external drive of the right type lying around, you can even use the casing from that one, and spare yourself the extra costs. via [MakeUseOf]

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Want To Be A Programmer? Teach Yourself [Programming]

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:00:29 +0000

You’ve always wanted to learn how to build software yourself—or just whip up an occasional script—but never knew where to start. Luckily, the web is full of free resources that can turn you into a programmer in no time. Since the invention of the internet, programmers have been using it to discuss software development techniques, publish tutorials, and share code samples for others to learn from and use online. If you’re curious about how to become a programmer, you can get off to a running start using tons of great free web-based tutorials and resources.

First Things First: Don’t Get Hung Up on Choosing a Language

A common pitfall for beginners is getting stuck figuring out which programming language is best to learn first. There are a lot of opinions out there, but there’s no one “best” language. Here’s the thing: In the end, language doesn’t matter THAT much. Understanding data and control structures and design patterns does matter very much. Every language—even a simple scripting language—will have elements that you’ll use in other languages as well and will help you learn. In classes I took to get my degree in Computer Science, I programmed in Pascal, Assembly, and C—languages I never actually got paid to program in professionally. I taught myself every language I’ve used in my career, reusing concepts I already knew, and referring to documentation and books to learn its syntax. So, don’t get hung up on what language to learn first. Pick the kind of development you want to do, and just get started using one that works. There are several different kinds of software development you can do for various platforms, from the web to your desktop to your smartphone to a command line. In this article, we’ll outline some of our favorite starter tutorials and resources for teaching yourself how to program for each major platform. We’re going to assume you’re a savvy user, but a newb when it comes to wrangling code snippets, so we’ll keep things at the beginner level. Even just following through a beginner programming tutorial, you’ll be happy to see how far you can get.

Desktop Scripting

The easiest way to try your hand at programming for your Windows or Mac desktop is to start with a scripting or macro program like AutoHotkey (for Windows) or Automator (for Mac). Right now hardcore coders throughout the Lifehacker readership are yelling at their monitors, saying that AHK or AppleScript are not “real” programming. That may be true—technically these types of tools just do high-level scripting. But for those new to programming who just want to get their feet wet, automating actions on their desktop, these free tools are a fantastic way to start—and you’d be surprised at how much you can do with them. For example, Adam developed the standalone Windows application we all know and love, Texter, using AutoHotkey, so this scripting language is capable of far more than just small-scale automation projects. To get started with AutoHotkey, check out Adam’s tutorial on how to turn any action into a keyboard shortcut using AutoHotkey. (Then, check out the source code for Texter to see the innards of a full-fledged AHK-based Windows application.)

Web Development

Instead of being bound to specific programming languages and the look and feel of a particular operating system, you can put your killer application in the browser and run it in the cloud, as a webapp. Welcome to the wonderful world of web development. HTML and CSS: The first thing you need to know to build any web site is HTML (the page markup that makes up web pages) and CSS (the style information that makes that markup look pretty). HTML and CSS are not true programming languages—they’re just page structure and style information. However, you should be able to author simple HTML and CSS by hand before you begin building web applications, because a web page is the frontend to every webapp. This HTML tutorial is a good place to start. JavaScript: Now that you can lay out a static web page with HTML and CSS, things get fun—because it’s time to learn JavaScript. JavaScript is the programming language of the web browser, the magic that makes dynamic in-page effects go. JavaScript is also the stuff of bookmarklets, Greasemonkey user scripts, and Ajax, so it’s the key to making all sorts of web goodies. Start learning JavaScript here. Server-side scripting: Once you’re good at making things happen inside a web page, you’re going to need to put some dynamic server action behind it—and for that, you’ll need to move into a server-side scripting language, like PHP, Python, Perl, or Ruby. For example, to make a web-based contact form that sends an email somewhere based on what a user entered, a server-side script is required. Scripting languages like PHP can talk to a database on your web server as well, so if you want to make a site where users can log in and store information, that’s the way to go. Excellent web development site Webmonkey is full of tutorials for various web programming languages. See their PHP Tutorial for Beginners. When you’re ready, check out how to use PHP to talk to a database in WebMonkey’s PHP and MySQL tutorial. PHP’s online documentation and function reference is the best on the web. Each entry (like this one on the strlen function) includes user comments at the bottom which are often as helpful as the documentation itself. (I happen to be partial to PHP, but there are plenty of other server-side scripting languages you might decide to go with instead.) Web frameworks: Over the years, web developers have had to solve and resolve the same problems and rewrite similar code to build dynamic web sites. To avoid making everyone reinvent the wheel for every new web development project, some programmers have come up with development frameworks that do some repetitive work for you. The popular Ruby on Rails framework, for example, takes the Ruby programming language and offers a web-specific structure for getting common web application tasks done. In fact, Adam used Rails to build his first serious (and impressive!) web application, MixTape.me. Here’s his take on how to build a web site from scratch with no experience. Other popular web development frameworks include CakePHP (for PHP programmers), Django (for Python programmers), and jQuery (for JavaScript). Web APIs: An API (Application programming interface) is a programmatic way for different pieces of software to talk to one another. For example, if you want to put a dynamic map on your web site, you want to use a Google Map instead of building your own custom map. The Google Maps API makes it easy to programmatically include a map in a page with JavaScript. Almost every modern web service you know and love has an API that lets you include data and widgets from it in your application, like Twitter, Facebook, Google Docs, Google Maps, and the list goes on. Integrating other webapps into your web application via API’s is the final frontier of rich web development. Every good, major web service API offers thorough documentation and some sort of quick start guide to try it out (here’s Twitter’s, for example). Go crazy.

Command Line Scripting

If you want to write a program that takes textual or file input and outputs something useful, the command line is the right place to do it. While the command line isn’t as sexy or good-looking as a webapp or desktop app, for rapid development of quick scripts that automate processes, you can’t beat it. Several scripting languages that work on a Linux-based web server also work at the command line, like Perl, Python, and PHP—so learning one of those baddies makes you conversant in two contexts. My path never took me too far down the Perl road, but I taught myself Python using the excellent and free online book, Dive into Python. If becoming a Unix ninja is one of your programmer goals, you absolutely must get good at shell scripting with bash. Bash is the command line scripting language of a *nix environment, and it can do everything from help you set up automated backups of your database and files to building out a full-fledged application with user interaction. Without any experience writing bash scripts beyond a dozen lines, I wound up developing a full-on personal to-do list manager in bash, Todo.txt CLI.

Add-ons

Nowadays, modern webapps and browsers are extensible with with bits of software that bolt onto them and add features. Add-on development is gaining in popularity as more developers look at existing software, like Firefox or WordPress, and think “But if only it could do THIS…” You can do a whole lot in any web browser with just a mastery of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Bookmarklets, Greasemonkey user scripts, and Stylish user styles are created with the same bits of code that make regular web pages, so they’re worth learning even if you just want to tweak an existing site with a small snippet of code. More advanced browser add-ons, like Firefox extensions, let you do more. Developing Firefox extensions, for example, requires that you’re conversant in JavaScript and XML (markup that’s similar to HTML, but way more strict in format). Back in 2007 I ran down how to build a Firefox extension, a skill I picked up after I stumbled upon a free tutorial. Many free and well-loved web applications offer an extension framework as well, like WordPress and MediaWiki. Both of those apps are written in PHP, so comfort with PHP is a prerequisite for getting started. Here’s how to write a plug-in for WordPress. Developers who want to ride the cutting edge of Google Wave can get started writing gadgets and bots in HTML, JavaScript, Java, and Python. I wrote my first Wave bot following this quick start tutorial in one afternoon.

Web Development for the Desktop

The best part about getting started programming in one context is when you can take those skills and apply them elsewhere. Learning web development first is a great way to start because now there are ways to put those skills to work on desktop applications, too. For example, Adobe AIR is a cross-platform run-time environment that lets you build your app once and release it to run on the desktop for every operating system AIR runs on. AIR apps are written in HTML, Flash, or Flex, so it lets you apply your web development skills in a desktop context. AIR is a great option for deploying desktop apps like one of our top 10 apps worth installing Adobe AIR for.

Mobile App Development

Mobile applications like the ones you run on your iPhone or Android smartphone are all the rage right now, so you may have dreams of striking it rich in the iTunes App Store with the next killer app. However, for the new coder, diving headfirst into mobile development can be a rough learning curve, since it requires comfort with advanced programming languages like Java and Objective C. However, it’s worth checking out what iPhone and Android development looks like. Check out this simple iPhone application development example to get a taste of what iPhone developers do. Android apps are written in Java, and here’s a friendly video tutorial of what building a “Hello Android” application workflow looks like.

Patience, Elbow Grease, Trial and Error

Good coders are a special breed of persistent problem-solvers who are addicted to the small victories that come along a long path of trial and error. Learning how to program is very rewarding, but it can also be a frustrating and solitary experience. If you can, get a buddy to work with you along the way. Getting really good at programming, like anything else, is a matter of sticking with it, trying things out, and getting experience as you go. Programming Tips via [Lifehacker]

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How To Add Your Recycle Bin To The Taskbar In Windows 7

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:49:45 +0000

When you’re busy multi-tasking on your PC, sometimes getting to the Recycle Bin can a pain. Today we take a look at a couple of different methods for adding the Recycle Bin to your Taskbar for easier access. Add Recycle Bin to Taskbar The first thing you want to do is create a new shortcut on the desktop. Now for the location type in or copy and paste the following:

explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder

It should look like this…then click the Next button. Now name it Recycle Bin or whatever you wish to call it and click Finish. Now we need to change the icon to the look of the Recycle Bin so right-click the icon and go to Properties. Click on the Change Icon button. Type or copy and paste the following into the field for where to look for icons and hit Enter.

%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll

In the new window of icons just scroll over a bit and find the Recycle Bin select it and click Ok. Click on Apply and Ok to close out of the Recycle Bin Properties screen and you’ll now have your new Recycle Bin shortcut. You can either drag it to your Taskbar or right-click and select Pin to Taskbar. There you go! Now you have the Recycle Bin on the Taskbar, and if you want to remove it just unpin it. This gives you another way to quickly access the Recycle Bin while you are busy multi-tasking. Also, you will probably want to remove the shortcut you made on the desktop. With this method you can’t drag items directly to the icon on the Taskbar, but it let’s you open up the bin. Add Fully Functional Recycle Bin to the Quick Launch Bar Another neat trick is to add the Recycle Bin to the Quick Launch Bar in Windows 7. Wait…what Quick Launch Bar? Well, the deal is you have to add it first. Rather than re-explain the process, just head to The Geek’s guide on how to Add the Quick Launch Bar to the Taskbar in Windows 7. Once you have completed that, it’s just a matter of dragging the Recycle Bin to the Quick Launch Bar. Then you can start dragging things into the bin on your Quick Launch, where here I am using the small icons which is a bit tedious. If you want to make it larger, unlock the Taskbar and right-click in the Quick Launch Bar and go up to View and select Large Icons. Here I have a nice looking Recycle Bin next to the start menu. You can play around with it too and move it around anywhere on your taskbar. For example here I deleted everything out of the Quick Launch Bar and only have the Recycle Bin in the Notification Area. If you are looking for a way to make the Recycle Bin easily accessible from the Taskbar, this gives you many options to tweak it how you like. This article appeared on HowToGeek

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Support Sunday: Keep Your Drivers Up To Date Easily With Device Doctor

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:00:26 +0000

Do you constantly worry that your device drivers are out of date? Oh wait….that’s just me as a system admin, I worry and check my devices constantly. Network cards, SCSI cards and much much more. Now using a little freeware application called Device Doctor, I can update drivers a little more efficiently and for free. We should probably start off with what a device driver is and when you need to load drivers. Drivers are needed for every piece of hardware on your computer from your monitor to your mouse back to your printer. The device needs the driver to tell it how to interact with the operating system – no drivers means that your hardware is not going to work as expected, if at all. When you reformat your computer system, you need to reinstall your drivers but sometimes you cannot find the proper driver and then sadly you will not be able to get your hardware to function. What do you do? Well Device Doctor can also identify and download the proper driver for unidentified items. Let’s take a look at the application, how it works and how it can help you update drivers for free. First run the installer and it will do its thing:

Click through and let it install. When it completes, the application will launch automatically. The user interface looks like this:

Go ahead and click Begin Scan to let it scan your device’s drivers.

Once the scan is completed you will be presented with a full list of devices that need updating. But wait! There is more - the application actually provides download links to grab the drivers that need updating. They really take all the leg work out of this for you. If a device is unidentified the application can still grab data from the card and check for drivers online. This is super helpful when you do not know where to look for the correct drivers. This can help you to not have to open the case and pop the card out looking for the fcc id or another identifying piece of information.

When you click download update it will take you to a webpage. That page will contain information as well as the link to grab the driver.

If the driver does not work out for you, please click the link to report the incorrect driver and then the next person will not have the same issue as you. This feature alone makes this much better than just Googling for the driver. I have used other applications like Double Driver in the past but it did not do much for downloading drivers for unknown devices and then I found Zhangduo that does find drivers for unidentified devices but not for known ones. You will see a statement warning you to backup, create a restore point and instructions for doing so. Good looking out Device Driver Guys! Click the download driver installer link in the center of the page to initiate the download. That will start the download like so:

Run the installer and update your drivers. It is that simple!

When my driver was updated, my mouse moves smoother! Sweet. It is easy to run this on a system to see where you stand. Now I will preach a little bit about how important keeping your drivers up to date are. Today in my network we upgraded a switch to giga bit speeds from 10/100. One of our servers refused to connect at giga bit speeds. What did we have to do? We had to update the NIC drivers and then all of our problems were gone. If I had done this before it would not have been an issue and the upgrade would have been complete. Instead it took another 20 minutes of my life and down time! So kids keep your drivers updated! When you don’t know what drivers you need, this can wind up being a MUST HAVE application! This story appeared first on MakeUseOf

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Some Really Useful Keyboard Shortcuts From MakeUseOf

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:08:57 +0000

We have become so addicted to the mouse that we do not realize how much it disrupts our work as we keep reaching out for it. And just how annoying does it become when your mouse is unresponsive, gets stuck or you trip it over as you try to quickly get a hold of it. The keyboard on the other hand is far more powerful than we realize. And don’t we have our hands all over it anyways? There are a few cool keyboard tricks that can help you save time and make you more productive. Here is a short list for the most handy Windows XP and Firefox shortcuts. Some of these may also work in other applications.

Windows XP

1. [SHIFT] + [alt] + [PrntScrn] – high contrast A window will open, click OK or simply hit [Enter]. This will enlarge the font on all open Windows and change colors to high contrast. For example the desktop will turn black, what was black text on white background will be reversed. Clicking the same key combination again reverts the changes. 2. [Ctrl] + [alt] + [up/down/left/right arrow] – rotate screen This won’t work on every machine as it depends on your graphics card and video drivers. However, if it does work, it will rotate your desktop. 3. [Ctrl] + select items from taskbar, right-click selected – mass control open windows You need to hold the [Ctrl] key while selecting open windows from the taskbar. To open the menu seen on the left, right-click any of the selected items. With this trick you can simultaneously close a group of applications at once or show them side by side or stacked or in a cascade. This can save a ton of time wasted on rearranging windows. 4. [Alt] + [Tab] – switch between running programs A little window will launch showing all open programs. Click the [Tab] key to jump to the next application, release keys to open the selected one. 5. [SHIFT] + [Del] – delete without confirmation Do you hate these nagging windows asking you whether you really want to do this or that. If you want to quickly delete something, without being harassed for a confirmation, use this shortcut. 6. [Windows] + [D] – show desktop or restore open windows This is the keyboard shortcut to the respective quick launch taskbar icon. 7. [Windows] + [L] – lock system An easy way to quickly protect and lock your system. When you log back in, all programs will still be running and windows will appear just the way you left them. 8. [Ctrl] + [Z] and [Ctrl] + [Y] – undo and redo I’m sure you all know that you can undo changes using the [Ctrl] + [Z] shortcut. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have this feature outside the computer? Anyways, you can undo an undo, i.e. redo what you did using the [Ctrl] + [Y] key combination. 9. [Windows] + [R], type cmd, hold [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] and hit Enter – run command prompt as Administrator The command prompt will now be run as Administrator. 10. Create your own keyboard trick! Are there folders or applications you need a lot? Why not create your own keyboard shortcut to quickly access these tools? This will only work for shortcuts located on your desktop! First you need to create an actual desktop shortcut. Right-click on the application and select > Create Shortcut from the context menu. Make sure the shortcut sits on your desktop. Now right-click the shortcut and select > Properties. You should see a line that says “Shortcut Key: ”. Click that line and then click a letter ony our keyboard, for example P. A shortcut will be created, in this example [Ctrl] + [alt] + [P]. And there you go, now you have your own personal shortcut key.

Firefox

1. [Ctrl] + [1] to [9] – jump to tab numbers 1 to 8 or last tab (9) Rather than scrolling through all your open tabs, you can quickly navigate to a specific tab if you know its position. For example, clicking [Ctrl] + [4] will open to tab number 4 (from the left). With [Ctrl] + [9] you will jump to the very last tab, no matter how many you have open. 2. [Ctrl] + [Tab] or [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [Tab] – move up/right or down/left in tabs Neat shortcut to move between tabs. 3. [/] or ['] – Find As You Type Text or Link Firefox has a neat search feature, which is Find As You Type. When you click the [/] key before starting to type your search, Firefox will only search in text. Likewise, clicking the ['] key will only find links.

4. [Ctrl] + mouse wheel – change font size With the new generation high resolution screens we often find that text on websites is way too small to read properly. Here is a little trick that can quickly increase the font size for better reading. While you hold down the control key, move your mousewheel to increase or decrease the font size in Firefox. This will also work in other programs, for example Word. This is also very useful for making a website fit your window size, rather than to adapt the browser window. This story originally appeared on MakeUseOf [UPDATE] Padraic – a regular commenter, gave these further tips: Copy & Paste [Ctrl] + c is copy, [Ctrl] + v is paste..[Ctrl] + x is cut. [Alt] + F4 is close current window and if no window open brings up option to shut down. If you are on XP and you want to quickly shut down, press the Windows key, then U then enter or “Y”. The run command is so handy, just find out what the executabe for your program is, so for example if I want to run internet explorer I just press Windows&R then type in “iexplore” you can even pass the website name as a parameter so for example “iexplore http://www.facebook.com“. Word is “winword” excel is “excel”.. I guess you could go on for awhile!!

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