1'm N0T a tek g33k!

2005-09-15T16:44:00.000-04:00

I love good utilities! And DVD Decrypter is one of the best. Yes I know, it takes a DVD and removes the copy protection as well as Region protection. But that is not all it can do. DVD Decrypter is fantastic for burning ISO images. Any ISO images. I often make ISO's to back up my software CDs with another program called WinImage and then if I need to brun them I use DVD Decrypter which is freeware by the way. Well, today I found another excellent use for it. When you burn a CD, it needs to be "finalized" before it can be used/viewed in someone else's computer. Well today I was using propietary software to make a CD through a system and the software was not working correctly. Meaning it did not finalize the disc. After searching the web, I discovered that DVD Decrypter will do ghit for you. So cool!!!

viksoe.dk - GMail Drive shell extension

2005-09-13T14:43:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite little add-on programs is no longer working. I'm depressed now and I hope they hurry up and fix it. GMail Drive shell extension

Stickies

2005-09-08T08:21:00.000-04:00

Do you love to use those yello stick-it notes? Yes I realize they are not all yellow, but you know what I mean. Well, there are a few computer program versions of them including one from 3M the maker of stick-it notes. But my favorite one is called Stickies. And of course, it's free. Check it out.

Google Talk Hack

2005-08-30T13:37:00.000-04:00

As I sortof mentioned on my main blog (lame post here), Google has entered the IM foray and has introduced it's own product called Google Talk. Google Talk uses Jabber IM technology and has a computer to computer phone-call feature just like Yahoo IM (MSN has something similar too). However, something neat has just been discovered. You can apparently pipe music out thru the phone-call instead of your voice. As such, you can play MP3's and/or anything else. Pretty cool! Here is the great link where I discovered this hack: http://www.twittv.com/googletalk.html. I just tried it and it worked for me, but I noticed you need to make one more setting change to have it run smoother. Here is my quick edited instructions based on the page I just mentioned (using Windows XP and assuming that you already have Google Talk installed).

1. Double click on the speaker icon in the lower right corner of your screen near the time. This will open up Volume Control.

2. Click on Options and then Properties.
3. Check the button next to Recording. Then check the box next to Wave Out Mix. Click OK.

4. In the Recording Control window, click Wave Out Mix

5. Go into Settings of Google Talk and choose the Audio tab (not really a tab).
6. Change the Input from "Default Device" to whatever your sound card is displayed as.
Uncheck "Unmute speaker and microphone when on a call." Click OK.

Now play an MP3, or podcast or whatever and then place a call to one of your buddies. You can try me if you would like. Chat with you soon.

I-Hacked.com Taking Advantage Of Technology - Home

2005-08-02T16:59:00.000-04:00

Great site for hacking hardware and other stuff. Very cool and good info. Click on title.

What does your phone number spell?

2005-07-28T12:04:00.000-04:00

What does your phone number spell?

ZabaSearch.com Free People Search

2005-07-21T09:54:00.000-04:00

Here is an interesting search engine. Put in your name and see what it comes up with. Mine showed my last two physical addresses as well as some links to search engines. Interesting and always fun to do a search on yourself.

SiPix Pocket Printer A6

2005-07-12T10:26:00.000-04:00

The SiPix Pocket Printer is so cute! I saw it in a PC magazine a month or so back and decided I wanted to get one. You can get them off of eBay and other web stored. This printer is tiny (size of two THICK decks of cards) and runs off of 4 AA batteries. It has a serial connection (unfortunately) but also infared. So, you can print from your laptop and PDA devices (do some research for specific PDA's - I have not tested it yet on my WinCE). It uses thermal paper similar to fax machines (of course the paper is very small just like the unit). Definitely cute and possibly will come in handy. Runs $20-30.

MAC Hater

2005-06-27T10:17:00.000-04:00

Found by Linds. Originally from Jokaroo.

Crazy Mac Mini Mod

2005-06-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

Epiacenter.com- The Mini-ITX Professionals - Crazy Mac Mini Mod

For those that hate the Mac Mini, check out the above link.

Flattery

2005-04-29T16:38:00.000-04:00

Snagged from Bowl of Cherries. Click on the title to be flattered.

DOOM III

2005-04-24T00:30:00.000-04:00

Doom III for the Xbox is pretty damn cool. I just got it and like it. I won't give a review because there are plenty already out there. I will say this though, I have been playing it at night with headphones on and I have jumped twice now while playing. Zombies popping up from behind to attack. Awesome! Jumpy because of a game. I love it!

Large Attachments via Email

2005-04-11T09:06:00.000-04:00

This was first posted by SunGrooveTheory and I finally got around to trying it out. YouSendIt | Email large files quickly, securely, and easily!

Carpal Tunnel Syndrom - Mousepad Help

2005-04-08T09:33:00.000-04:00

Carpal tunnel syndrome has become a scourge among today's active and computer literate population. Men, especially, are becoming afflicted with this serious health problem. To help stamp out carpal tunnel syndrome, new mouse pads have been devised to assist men in their computer operations. Ergonomically-improved mouse pads such as these will enable men to avoid the pain and suffering associated with this serious health concern.
Samples are below.

2005-04-07T13:28:00.000-04:00

sent in by FragileKitty

Gmail Tools & Plugins

2005-04-05T09:32:00.000-04:00

Robs Blog: Gmail Tools & Plugins - great blog filled with links to Gmail tools. Gmail! You know, the free email account system from Google. It let's you keep 1GB of mail/data. Incredible!

My favorite tool is the Gmail drive located here Gmail Drive or Gmail Drive. But I must warn you, I just discovered it and have not fully tested it. But it might be very cool. An online storage system for files. I believe there is also a tool to directly transfer email to another users account. Maybe it will work with this?

RoboDump 1.0

2005-04-02T23:23:00.000-05:00

This may be silly, but it is teky. Click the title and check it out.

2005-04-01T18:22:00.000-05:00

Customer: I have problems printing in red...
Helpdesk: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: No.

What's the Real Address?

2005-03-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

When you type the name of a web site into your browser (generic term for the program you are using to surf the web - ie. Internet Explorer, FireFox, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, etc...), how does your computer know where to go? Let's take a look using this web site - tekgeek.blogspot.com, and a real world example the home where I live - Ailyn's House.

Tekgeek.blogspt.com is the "friendly" name for this website, also called a URL (Universal Resource Locator (so if someone asks you what the URL is, they're just being technical and want to know the web address)). The actual address of the web site, called the IP (Internet Protocol) address is 66.102.15.101 (every computer on the internet has a unique IP address (unless it is behind a router and on a private network (to be discussed in a later post))). In comparison, Ailyn's House is the friendly name of where I live. The actual address is 66 Here Street, Somewhere CT ##### (sorry, no stalkers for me!). We use friendly names because they are much easier to remember and because the actual address can change. I may move to a different city, but I will still live at Ailyn's House. Same goes for your web site.

So how does your computer know what the "real" address is? When you type the URL (see! there's me being technical) into your browser the computer first checks its local address book, the hosts file. In real life (often referred to as IRL (are you getting tired of these acronyms or is it just me?)), we would check our personal address book or maybe our PDA (personal digital assistant, like a Plam Pilot). The hosts file (generally located in "\windows (or winnt)\system32\drivers\etc" on Windows based OS's (Operating Systems)) generally only contains one entry: 127.0.0.1 _______ localhost. Loclhost refers to the local computer you are using and 127.0.0.1 has been reserved as the loopback address (an address that tells the computer not to test its connections to another computer, but to test its own basic network setup). An old trick to speed-up internet connections back when modems were a lot slower was to add URL's and their IP addresses to the host file - now it is not generally necessary and can cause problems if the address changes. In fact, some viruses will alter your host file so that when you try to go to www.mcafee.com or www.norton.com or other antivirus sites, you will instead be redirected to either nowhere, or to a site that has the virus! As such, many anti-spam and anti-spyware products will change this file to read-only (more about this in a later post).

So if the address is not listed here, then your computer contacts a DNS server (Domain Name System). Basically, a server with a big address book of web pages and their corresponding IP addresses. In real life (IRL), we would use our big telephone directory - white pages and yellow pages. So that's it. That's how it works. Pretty cool huh?

2005-03-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

for the all-night hacker

2005-03-18T09:34:00.000-05:00

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Helpdesk: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Helpdesk: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer: OK
Helpdesk: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Helpdesk: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another
keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah...that one does work!

Murphy's Laws for Computers

2005-03-17T13:12:00.000-05:00

I stole this from the Bowl of Cherries site cause it was so cool!

A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Any cool program always requires more memory than you have.
When you finally buy enough memory, you will not have enough disk space.
Disks are always full. It is futile to try to get more disk space. Data expands to fill any void.
If a program actually fits in memory and has enough disk space, it is guaranteed to crash.
If such a program has not crashed yet, it is waiting for a critical moment before it crashes.

2005-03-16T09:44:00.000-05:00

Gaim 2 Blogger add-on. Post new blog entries using IM. Pretty neat! http://sourceforge.net/projects/gaim-blogger

2005-03-08T10:41:00.000-05:00

Helpdesk: Good day. How may I help you?
Customer: Hello... I can't print.
Helpdesk: Would you click on start for me and ...
Customer: Listen pal; don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates damn it!

The Mailinator

2005-03-07T15:28:00.000-05:00

"I'll be back!" But spam won't.

Ever surf the web and find a cool new program that you want to download and try? You click the download button and it wants your email address (for verification purposes don't-cha know). So you say what the hell, I really want to try this porgram and I don't feel like creating another Yahoo account. So you type in your address. You get a confirmation email. You go to the site and download the program. Then you start getting spam. You think to yourself "gee, I don't remember saying I wanted all of those handy-dandy newletters about this suxy program i just deleted".

Instead of using your email address, use a temporary one. It's simple. Your grandmother could do it. When asked for your email address type anything@mailinator.com. "Anything" literally means anything - you could put joeblow@mailinator.com, ihateyou@mailinator.com or even AilynIsaSexGod@mailinator.com. Anything will work! Mailinator creates the email account automatically once an email is sent to it. The account is deleted after a couple of days or so but in the meantime, you can go to the site and retirenve your mail. Simply type in the name you created and click Go. That's it! Simple, efective, rox! Go ahead and try it out now. Send an email or go to a sight that requires one. Guaranteed you'll love this free service or your money back.

Quick Robin, To The Batphone!

2005-02-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

nanna-nanna-nanna-nanna-BATMAN!
nanna-nanna-nanna-nanna-BATMAN!

BAM! POW! WHAP!

I used to love the old corn-ball TV show Batman. I even met the star, Adam West! He was quite the character and the show was fun to watch. Especially when Julie Newmar was on (try to describe her without using the word 'statuesque'). And what great props! Besides the Batmobile, I always wanted the police commisioner's red phone - a direct line to the Batman. Well, thanx to a great find by SunGrooveTheory, I can make my own. Check out this site here. It's going to look so good on my desk at work!

The Programmer's Prayer

2005-02-23T17:33:00.000-05:00

Our Program, who art in Memory,
Hello be thy name.
The Operating System come,
Thy commands be done,
at the Printer as they are on the Screen.
Give us this day our daily data,
and forgive us our I/O Errors as we
forgive those whose Logic Circuits are faulty.
And lead us not into frustration,
but deliver us from Power Surges.
For Thine is the Algorithm,
the Application, and the Solution,
looping forever and ever.
Return.

Stolen from ITchick who got it from Zeek.

Re-Post: Cause I Like It

2005-02-22T11:34:00.000-05:00

I wanted to re-post this which was originally posted at http://2big4myhead.blogspot.com/.

Ok, I admit to being sort-of a geek. But only a little. Here are pictures of two my Xmas gifts I received this year. The first two are of my binary clock, the last of circuit board coasters.
Click on the coasters picture to get a bigger view. By the way, the time in the clock pix is 9:52:42 and 9:53:08 (respectively)

Geek Commercials

2005-02-09T15:39:00.000-05:00

First mentioned (for me anyways) on 5ft_c_l_i Live Journal page, here is the GE geek movie (can also be found at its home place here).

(I killed the direct play - takes too long to load)

blogBuddy - Posting Tool

2005-02-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

Have you ever lost your new post before you could save it? Just got done typing that lengthy "Rudicus Report" and while formatting text, it all disappeared? Click the Publish Post button and then received an error? And when you went to go back a page or clicked refresh your post was blank? Boy oh boy does this piss me off.

So what's the alternative? Well, you could type your post in notepad or some other app, and then copy and paste to Blogger. But that seems annoying to me. You could also email a post directly to Blogger. But who knows how the formatting will look? There are even app's that will let you send an IM that will automatically post (there is at least one for Gaim and AIM). Luckily, there is a different alternative. In fact, I'm using one right now. It's called blogBuddy.

blogBuddy is a free utility for uploading posts to your Blogger blog. It's a small application, easy to set up and very easy to use. Type your post to your heart's content and then either click Post or Post and Publish. I personally suggest clicking Post. This way, the text of your post will be copied up to your blog but not available for your readers to see, yet - like a draft. You may then use spell check, add your graphix, links and any special formatting you may desire.

The biggest con I see is that blogBuddy's formatting tools leave something to be desired. Also, when I tried to add a link, it did not "hold" after uploading it to my blog. But that's ok, I'm already used to Blogger's editor and I like it enough. I just don't want to loose the text of my posts due to quirky internet connections. Ya know? :)

Newsgroups

2005-02-01T01:33:00.000-05:00

Brief History
According to Learn the Net, Newsgroups are a place where people get together to discuss subjects of mutual interest. Except with newsgroups, the communication is written, not verbal... You can read what others have written and post your own comments. These posts are uploaded from the users computer to the server via a text file (like sending an email). They are then read from the server using a newsgroup reader program like Outlook Express (like retrieving email). However, someone discovered that you could take a file (movie, game, mp3), encode it into text, and then post it to the newsgroup. The newsgroup server then spreads it out to other servers and is ready for download by many users.

How to Access
If you have hi-speed internet like DSL and Cable Modem, you probably already have access and just don't know it. Companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Adelphia provide this service for free. Depending on the company however, you may or may not have an unlimited download amount (I have Adelphia and my monthly amount is 5GB). Of course, you can always pay for more. Contact your ISP (Internet Service Provider - the people you are paying to receive the high-speed internet from), ask them if they have newsgroup service (yes they do), find out the server name(s) and how to access them (usually you will use the email address they gave you when you first signed up, as well as the password you came up with).

Software
There is a variety of software you can use to access newsgroup servers. The 3 programs I strongly recommend using are Grabit, QuickPar, and WinRAR. Grabit is the newsgroup reader, the program you will use to connect to the newsgroup servers and read/download what is there. It is freeware and a great program (best I have used so far). It may take a little to get used to, but that is what we are here for =). Quick note: the current version is 1.5.1, but I have had problems with it. I would recommend an earlier version still available on their site - 1.4.7. After connecting to your newsgroup server, you choose which newsgroups you want to access. I suggest searching for anything that begins with alt.binary (ex. alt.binary.movies, alt.binary.pictures.erotic, alt.binary.tv.buffy). Once that is complete and you have updated the list of posts, you will look through the list to find what you want. Some will be files, some will be posts (actual conversation posts, questions, etc.), some will be spam and junk. The files and posts are generally color coded so you may hide what you don't want (this is not an exact science however - posted pictures are color coded as the basic text files - I believe the color coding relates to the size more than the content). Once you have all of the files you want, click the download (may take awhile - lol).

When I first started using newsgroups, I mostly downloaded missed TV episodes (Buffy - before I got TiVo). Since these files can be quite large, people compress them into a .RAR format which is similar to .ZIP. As such, you need the WinRAR program mentioned above. This download is trialware meaning it will only work for so long or it will give you annoying pop-ups or program start delays. I own a copy so I don't worry about that. You can also use a great program called Stuffit Expander. Originally (and very popular I might ad) created for the Mac, this program is free and will expand most compression formats including .RAR files.

Although compressing the file does make it smaller, it usually still is not small enough. So, you may see multiple RAR files possibly ending in .R01, .R02 etc... It should be pretty clear by the title what you need. Although there will almost always be one beginning file ending in .RAR, don't forget to get the rest. Best bet, get all of the files with the same title (ex. Buffy_01_01.RAR, .R01, .PAR or .PAR2). Hey what's that .PAR/.PAR2 file thingy? Sometimes, files are missing. PAR files helps to correct this. Example, if you took a photograph and cut it up into 8 pieces, and then separately mailed each piece to yourself, in a few days you would get them all back and you will be able to put them together again to make the original picture. But what if one of the pieces gets damaged or lost? This is what the PAR files are for. They are special files used to check the condition of what you downloaded and what you may still need. They attempt to fix any damaged files and possibly re-create missing ones. Awesome technology.

Once everything is downloaded, double-click the first .PAR file you have and QuickPar will evaluate your download and let you know if anything is missing. Once done, you will want to right-click the .RAR file and choose expand. WinRAR will then recompile all of the pieces into one file. Voila. Done.

Pro's
When using P2P software (like Shareaza, Grokster and others) your machine is not only a client, but a server. Meaning, if you are downloading illegal files, you now are also hosting them and subject to criminal investigation (as I am sure you have heard on the news many times). With newsgroups, it is your choice whether or not you upload files. I also find that the speed is better and much more reliable.

Con's
Newsgroups have the latest files, items, etc... but not always older ones. Although you can post a request for something, it does not mean you will get it. I have had very good luck though. People want to give. Also, there are many newsgroups out there and it takes time searching for what you want.

Last Words of Advise
Make sure you have an anti-virus program running and that is is up-to-date. I have at times chosen everything in a group and clicked download without checking to see the file extensions. That's when my VirusScan starts going crazy due to the viruses I attempted to download =) oops.

Burn DVD's the Ailyn Way

2005-01-29T13:23:00.000-05:00

Legal or Not
Making a backup copy of an owned DVD is not illegal as long as it is for your own use. However, apparently breaking the copy protection embedded in most of these DVD's is illegal. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) states that it's illegal to break the CSS copy-protection mechanism employed by most commercial DVD movies. And unfortunately, most purchased DVD's (movies) have copy protection. So ultimately, it is up to you. I am not proposing or arguing either side.

Hardware
You need a fast machine (processor) with a decent amount of memory. You also need a lot of hard drive space and of course, a DVD burner. So, I would suggest at least a Pentium III 450mhz with 128MB RAM and 40GB hard drive. Less speed, power and memory can still work, but will take a lot longer. Less hard drive space can work but remember this, depending on how you go about this process, you will need 4 to 8GB of hard drive space per DVD. Finally, you need to choose the format you will use. You have two choices, either DVD-R or DVD+R. Either should work in most newer standalone DVD players. For more information, please see this site.

Software
I've used a few different types of software and have finally settled on my two favorites: DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter. Both are freeware and work very well. DVD Shrink allows you to choose what you want to include in your backup and get rid of the rest. Meaning you can skip the extra audio tracks (Spanish, French, director's commentary), subtitles, menus and previews. The program then compresses the video but leaves the audio the same (in other words, the audio is a perfect copy). The video compression amount depends on the size of the original. The shorter the movie's length of time, the smaller the movie generally is. NOTE: most purchase movies are 8.75GB while the DVD-R and DVD+R are only 4.37GB.

DVD Shrink works interactively with Nero and DVD Decrypter. So if you have a DVD drive (player) and a DVD burner (recorder), then you can set up the programs to run automatically and walk away. Otherwise, you save the compressed DVD ISO image to your hard drive, and then use the second program to burn it. Besides costing money, I have had problems with Nero burned DVD's and their compatibility with some players. So I use DVD Decrypter. Although DVD Decrypter is usually used by most people to remove copy protection, I only use it for it's ability to burn from ISO images. And it is fast.

So, try it out and let me know if you have any questions or need some help. And have fun burning!

Instant Messenger... which one to use?

2005-01-28T16:24:00.000-05:00

I love Instant Messenger. To me, it is the best computer software achievement since email. Practically instant conversation with better flow than email. Unfortunately, there are a lot of types of IM including ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL to name some of the more well known ones. You can use them all (like I practically do) but that takes up a lot of windows space as well as memory. So instead, let's consolidate. There are two programs out there right now that work great: Trillian and Gaim.

Trillian is compatible with AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ. It is highly skinable and even has video and audio chat functions (the most recent version). It looks like it is now on version 3. I used to use a pre-version 1 (their freeware beta version) but stopped afterwhile due to some compatibility issues. I have since moved to Gaim.

Gaim is also compatible with AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ. But it does not stop there. It also works with Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Groupwise, IRC, Napster, Silk and Same Time (woohoo - used internally at IBM). Gaim is completely free but as such, does not have the best support or web site. But what is there to support? I have had little problems with it ever since it made it past version 1.00. It rox. I love it. It even alerts you if you have new mail (assuming your IM name is associated with en email account).

It does not have video and audio chat nor does it have some of the frilliness of other programs like Yahoo's environments. But that's not stuff I need anyway. I want to be able to communicate with all of my family and friends who happen to be on a variety of IM systems. So I love it.

Oh yea, two other functions that rox. It saves all of your conversations in a very conveniently dated log form (if you choose to save them). Also, it allows you to have more than one account IM. Example, I have 2 separate MSN IM accounts and 4 separate Yahoo accounts active at the same time (I get lonely and like to talk to myself) besides my AIM and Same Time account.

So, try it out. Great alternative. Not too big. Quick to install. Pretty easy to configure. And if you need help, I'm here and can be reached at username ailynzel on either MSN or Yahoo. Have fun chatting!