David.R.Gilson

David’s links of the week March 30th through April 28th:

• Download the Smart Installer Pack – Welcome to the Frontpage – What Smart Installer Pack actually does is incorporate a handful of software* usually installed on new computers, reinstalled operating systems, etc.

  So, SIP was made just to eliminate all the searching around for nothing, waiting, downloading (which can take up a lot of time) and only then installing.

  Now, all you have to do is download this Smart Installer Pack and click on the preferred icons – you can choose which software to install (see screen shots).

• Use Smart Installer Pack to Install All Needed Software at Once | MakeUseOf.com – Some time back we looked at how you can create a custom Windows XP CD so that you can include all you favorite software on the CD that would install automatically. If that was too much for you, here is a simpler way. Try out the Smart Installer Pack.

  While the Smart Installer Pack (sip) might not offer the same amount of customization as offered by the method we demonstrated, it certainly gets the job done quickly and provides you with some pretty nifty applications.

  So if you reinstalled the Operating System or other wise looking for some handy applications for your needs all you need to do is to download and run the Smart Installer Pack

• How to format external hard drive to FAT32 in Windows – Trying to format a large external USB or Firewire hard drive to the FAT32 file system? Can’t do it? Only see an option for formatting the drive using the NTFS file format? Well if you answered yes any of those questions, then you’re at the right place.

  I was recently trying to format my 1 TB MyBook external hard drive in Windows XP to FAT32 instead of the overly forced-upon NTFS format. Why? Well because I needed to connect it to a NAS device and the NTFS permissions were causing the NAS not to be able to access the drive. Simple solution is to use FAT32, no security, no problems. Though it’s sometimes useful to format a USB drive in NTFS format.

• Make Tech Easier – 10 Useful Ubuntu-related Sites You Should Bookmark –
• 5 Easy-to-use Freeware Video Converters | MakeUseOf.com – Our lives have turned into a big media center. Each of us likely have our own set of desktops, laptops, mobile phones, portable media players, handheld consoles, and MP3 players. The many video formats needed to run our gadgets just add more stress to our already media-entangled lives.

  With so many video formats and too little time to organize our video files, we need an easy-to-use and intuitive video converter that handles all our video files on the go. Let us look at 5 of the best freeware video converters that will keep your video collection a little less insane. For converting other files, you can choose an online file converter that were covered earlier.

• Make Tech Easier – 9 Things You Need To Do/Install After Installing Ubuntu 9.04 – After you have downloaded and installed Ubuntu 9.04, what is next thing you should do?

  Getting Ubuntu onto your hard disk is only the first step. It is still in the raw and unpolished state. To get the best out of it, you really need to configure and customize it to suit your needs. In part 3 of the series, I am going to go through the important things that you need to do after you have got Jaunty up and running.

• Creating Bootable Vista / Windows 7 USB Flash Drive at Kevin’s Blog – It surprised me to find that there are very few dead-simple guides to creating a bootable USB thumb/pen/flash drive for a Vista and/or Windows 7 installation. I cobbled together the following from VistaPCGuy and another source I don’t remember right now.

  This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.

• How To Scan and Fax Documents Online for Free | MakeUseOf.com – Popular in the 1980’s, faxes are still around in many organizations and are the fastest and most reliable way to communicate via physical media. To give an example, PayPal requires you to verify your identity by sending a fax with copies of bank statement and government ID if it can’t process your card automatically.

  In these kinds of situations, sending a fax for free as quickly as possible would certainly be useful. In this article, we’re taking a look at 4 websites that let you send fax online and come with a free or trial version.

• 10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About | MakeUseOf.com – Youtube – You know that site with videos and all. Yeah! It turns out that its quite popular and you happen to visit and use it quite often. Instead of just searching and playing here are some top Youtube URL tricks that you should know about:
• 3 Easy Ways To Send a Complete Web Page via Email | MakeUseOf.com – There are two ways to send a webpage to someone. The most common and the most followed is to copy paste the webpage link in the email. The second is to send the entire web page via email, that is include it within the body of the email.
• Check If Your ISP Throttling Your BitTorrent Downloads | MakeUseOf.com – So the cat’s been out of the bag for a while now that ISP’s are throttling or in some cases even blocking your BitTorrent downloads or seeding.

  Comcast came out and admitted to it’s practices in the United States last year. You can read about it here on wired. Since then there has been lot’s of speculation on if other ISP’s are doing the same thing…

• 6 Cool Websites To Unleash The Mad Scientist Within You – Were you the type of kid that would get in trouble because you were always blowing something up or mixing things together that shouldn’t be mixed? Do you now have a boring 9 to 5 job that makes you yearn for those free days in your childhood when all things were possible? If you answered yes to those questions, then this post is for you. I will show you six cool web sites that you can use to unleash the mad scientist within and try fun science experiments at home.
• 5 Dead-Easy Websites to Share Files Without Signing Up | MakeUseOf.com – Sharing or sending files via eMail is very inconvenient. First of all some files are simply too big to be eMailed. Secondly, when the recipient downloads mail they cannot control when to download the file and for the time it takes until the eMail is transferred they are stuck. And last but not least, someone downloading mail at work may find that some file types are blocked by default, thus they may never even receive the file.
• How To Find Unprotected Website Directories Get “Interesting” Files | MakeUseOf.com – With all the risks involved in using file sharing networks, browsing unprotected website directories is probably a lot easier and safer. Only when you start doing that do you realise half the stuff that people keep in their website folders (Sports Illustrated magazines!)

  Then you start to realise how silly they are for not password protecting those folders and leaving them wide open for the whole world to walk in an

• Phoenix Guardian HEPA System – The Phoenix Guardian HEPA System was the first portable air scrubbing device designed exclusively for the restoration industry. The Guardian can perform several critical air quality remediation functions simultaneously.
• Make Tech Easier – Making Full Use of the Super (Windows) Key in Gnome – I use a lot of different computers. Many of those computers are on different operating systems, or desktop environments. Just when I find myself growing accustomed to a particular way of doing things, I find myself on a different system with a different way of doing things. Key combinations are some of the most common distinctions between platforms, so I try to set each system up to recognize the key combos I need. Normally, that’s not a big problem. You just go into the keyboard settings for that environment and set it the way you like, right? Well not always.
• Feeling Depressed? Here’s The Top 5 Good News Websites | MakeUseOf.com – If you are like me, then you are sick and tired of all the negative news being thrown at you by the mainstream media outlets. Pick any major online news outlet and you will find the majority of items are about the ever sinking economy, Iraq or someone’s unfortunate death.

  Some might argue that reading about people who have it worse can make you feel better about yourself, but I really do not think that is true.

• Make Tech Easier – How To Configure A Firewall In Linux Using Firestarter – Long back, when I was running a Windows only PC, a firewall utility was always among the first software that I used to install on a newly formatted machine. Along with an Antivirus, a firewall used to be considered a must for any Windows installation that was in any way connected to the outside world.

  Of course, times have changed now. I use Linux almost exclusively and rarely see the Windows login prompt. Most Linux distributions are far more secure than Windows, out of the box, but the threat is still there and having a good firewall protecting your computer is still a good idea.

  Almost all Linux distributions comes bundled with a firewall software known as iptables, which is a command line based software for configuring Firewall rules for all network traffic to and from the Linux kernel.

• XMind – Social Brainstorming and Mind Mapping – XMind, combined with online sharing service, provides a revolutionary way to enable both team brainstorming and personal mind mapping. With this major upgrade, we bring Web 2.0 concepts on community sharing into a popular desktop application. New Gantt view allows project managers to easily track project tasks and schedules. You#039;ll find many more useful and time-saving functions in XMind product family.
• Hive Five: Five Best Mind Mapping Applications – Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualize your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.

  Earlier this week we asked you to share which mind mapping application helped you brainstorm most effectively. The votes are in and we#039;re back to share the results and arm you with the tools to make your next think tank meeting that much more productive.

• The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security – There#039;s lots of innovation going on in security – we#039;re inundated with a steady stream of new stuff and it all sounds like it works just great. Every couple of months I#039;m invited to a new computer security conference, or I#039;m asked to write a foreword for a new computer security book. And, thanks to the fact that it#039;s a topic of public concern and a quot;safe issuequot; for politicians, we can expect a flood of computer security-related legislation from lawmakers. So: computer security is definitely still a quot;hot topic.quot; But why are we spending all this time and money and still having problems?
• Add Your Twitter Blog to Technorati Directory – You can consider adding your Twitter account to the Technorati Blog directory for the following reasons:

  1. You can associate relevant Technorati tags to your Twitter profile and this could give you extra exposure via the popular Technorati blog directory (see tags).

  2. With Technorati, you can automatically track other blog posts that are linking to your tweets.

  3. Your Twitter account will also show up in your Technorati profile page just like your other regular blogs thus increasing visibility.