One complaint that I've long had about Firefox, and it's a small one, is that darned Download window that pops up whenever I, um, download something. Looks like someone created a minor tweak to make the window more unobtrusive. It's called the Download Statusbar.

You can find more info at the development homepage, including these cool features:

Features:

• Auto-hides when not in use
  
• Single-click pause and resume
  
• Pause all, Resume all, Cancel all, and Remove all finished - available from the context menu of the bar itself
  
• Run a completed file with a double click on its finished box. Open containing folder, remove, and rename from the context menu
  
• In-line view of percent done, speed in KB/sec, KB downloaded so far, and remaining time, can be customized in the options.
  
• Updating tooltip provides a more detailed view of the current download, including source, destination, size of the download and the remaining time
  
• Option to automatically clear files after a specified number of seconds
  
• Copy source URL from the context menu
  
• Stop downloads and save them for the next browser session.
  
• Delete a file from your system from the context menu
  
• Localized strings for translation
  
• Download history can be viewed and configured to only keep the last # download items
  
• Option to start virus scanner when a download completes
  
• On browser close, option to continue downloads in download manager
  

Looks good to me. Then again, I AM a geek.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:24 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I mentioned Video Ook! in a previous post. What I neglected to mention is that might need an additional player for the preponderance of FLV(flash video) movies out there. Here's a small standalone FLV player. There are others, of course, but I chose this one because it works on pre-2000 versions of Windows.

If you're interested in something far more robust, I'd like to suggest MPUI/Mplayer. Mplayer is the GNU media players, while MPUI adds a GUI frontend, with a number of usable skins.

MPlayer is arguably the best media player application of the world. Is is almost strictly monolithic, which means that it mainly consists of a single 7 MB executable that already contains all necessary codecs – for most files, it does not need any external codecs to be installed. If you want to know more about this wonderful program, please visit the MPlayer homepage.

The roots of MPlayer are in the Unix environment, and it shows in the way MPlayer is used: There is no graphical user interface, or at least none worth mentioning. Instead, MPlayer completely relies on a well-crafted command line interface and powerful keyboard shortcuts. While this is perfectly OK for Unix enthusiasts, Mac and Windows users prefer nice and more or less colorful graphical interfaces. There is already a »semi-official« OS X port, but up to now, no such project exists for the Windows platform.

This is where MPUI comes into play. It is a small program for Windows that takes the command-line hassle off you. Instead, you will get a no-frills, straight-to-the-point GUI that resembles the venerable Windows Media Player 6. It does not support every feature of MPlayer – there are just too many of them – but it is a solid »workhorse« media player tool suitable for most, if not all, everyday needs.

Note: "No installation is required to use MPUI/MPlayer. Simply copy the two .exe files into a directory of your choice an run MPUI. "

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Everyone seems to have fallen in love with Performancing, which is a pretty good tool. However, here's one that I like better. Ever watch a Google or YouTube video that you knew would get pulled because it, umm, didn't exactly follow copyright laws and you wanted to save it permanently? Well now you can. I give you Ook?Video Ook! for your reading pleasure. Excerpt:

Ook? Video Ook! enables you to download embedded videos from several systems (such as YouTube, Google Video, Pornotube, Metacafe and many more).

Apparently, Ook? finds the appropriate URL for embedded videos and allows you to bring them on down to your PC. Pretty darned cool.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:17 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Maybe you decided to test drive Linux by downloading and burning one of the Live CD distros, but were unable to get the CD to boot properly. There are several possibilities:

1) In your computer's BIOS, the ACPI could be on. Unless you're using multiple processors, it's probably a good idea to disable this feature. Unless, like me, your computer has this feature tied to another that I cannot do without

2) You burned the ISO image at too high a rate. I know that everyone loves to burn CDs at 48x or greater. Unfortunately, bootable OSs are a bit more sensitive to this. When I burned my first Knoppix distro, I threw away my first two burned discs because I had created them at too high of a speed. I tried it at 2x and the Live CD worked perfectly. Now when I burn an ISO, I typically choose the slowest speed possible.

3) The file integrity of the ISO is corrupt. Many of the Live CD distros are greater than 600 Mb. Larger files are more susceptible to getting disrupted while downloading. What you need to do is to verify the integrity of your ISO. Here's how:

The best way to check the integrity of your downloaded ISO file is with the md5sum checksum. The Linux distro download site should offer either a Web page display or a separately downloadable text file containing a string of checksum characters. This string has to exactly match the string you get when you run md5sum against your downloaded ISO file.

For Linux Users

The md5sum checksum functionality is built into Linux. To begin the process under Linux, change directories to the wherever you downloaded your .ISO file. Once there, open a "console" or "terminal" and type this command after the prompt and press Enter:

md5sum {DOWNLOADEDFILENAME}.iso

(Note: Replace the {} and what's inside them with the actual name of your downloaded .ISO file.)

Next, skip down to the "Analyze the Results" subhead and pick up the steps there

For Windows Users

To begin the process under Windows, download the Etre.org the md5sum.exe command-line utility or Luke Pascoe's md5summer Windows utility.

To use the DOS/Windows command-line utility, copy the md5sum.exe file to the proper directory:

For NT/2K/XP: Put md5sum.exe in {Your Windows Folder}\system32 folder

Then open a command prompt:

Windows 95/98/Me: Start > Run > command
Windows NT/2K/XP: Start > Run > cmd

Use the CD command to change directories to the wherever you downloaded your .ISO file. Once there, type this command and press Enter:

md5sum {DOWNLOADEDFILENAME}.iso

(Note: Replace the {} and what's inside them with the actual name of your downloaded .ISO file.)

The utility will create a checksum you can compare to the string offered by the Linux .ISO download site.

Analyzing the Results
Creating the checksum will take a few minutes. Once it's done, you can visually compare at least the first six characters and the last six characters of the two checksum strings. If they match, you're all set. It's time to burn your CD -- and that's the subject of our next tip.

There you have it. Now go have some fun.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And no, it doesn't have anything to do with Pulp Fiction. Anyway, "bring out the GIMP." Learn to grok the GIMP. It's a powerful photo editing tool that is completely free, albeit not entirely intuitive in its use, which makes this site quite useful.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 04:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A Dell customer bought a new laptop. In of itself, that particular fact is completely not noteworthy. What is interesting is that the customer planned on using Linux on the laptop and received a refund from Dell for his unused Windows XP totaling $105. Excerpt:

Dell today gave freelance programmer and sysadmin Dave Mitchell, of Sheffield, UK, a refund of 47 pounds ($89) for the unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 bundled with his new Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, Mitchell says. Dell also refunded the tax, for a total of £55.23 ($105).

With few laptops available without the so-called "Microsoft tax", Windows refund requests have long been a slow movement among Linux community organizers. A few Linux users have reported success, but most laptop vendors have refused to honor the refund clause in Microsoft's End User License Agreement (EULA) unless the user returns the entire laptop. A Dell spokesperson was not aware of any policy change.
...
Dell has not yet requested that Mitchell return his Microsoft hologram sticker or any other materials bundled with the system. The laptop did not come with a Windows CD.

Mitchell was careful to document that he did not run the Microsoft product or accept the EULA. "I booted the laptop, then photographed every step of the boot process up to and including clicking on the XP 'no I don't accept' button. I also scrolled through each page of the EULA, taking a photo of each page," he wrote in an e-mail interview.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 04:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So you've just seen another blue screen of death. Or you've run into one of the many bugsfeatures in Windows that you just don't care for. Finally, you're thinking about making the switch to another OS, but you don't know which one to choose.

How about a Mac? People seem to love those. Well, not ALL people.

Okay, how about Linux? You've heard some good things about it: it's stable, has lots of software and has the ability to work with lots of Microsoft products, including Office. But you're feeling a little nervous because you don't know much, if anything, about Linux. What do you do to become more comfortable? Take some free online training courses which will walk you through lessons that will move you along the path from a rank novice to a seasoned pro. Here are the courses:

• Getting Started with Linux - Beginner's Course
  
• Intermediate Level Linux Course
  
• Advanced Linux Course
  

And here are some of what's taught in those classes:

Lesson One

• Objectives
  
• What is Linux?
  
• Installing Linux
  
• An actual install
  
• About Debian GNU/Linux
  

Lesson Two

• Installing Debian GNU/Linux
  
• Partitioning
  
• Plunk that CD in the drive
  
• Sundry installation tasks
  
• Reboot and basic configuration
  
• Completing the install process
  

Lesson Three

• Working with Linux - First Things First
  
• Working as another user
  

System Administration - An Overview
Installation Tasks
Backing up systems
...
System Services
...
The Apache Web server
Keeping Your Linux System Secure
Setting Up A Virtual Mail System
...
Programming under Linux

And there's a lot more there. In fact, more than you probably want to know. However, you should feel fairly comfortable using Linux after walking your way through the coursework.

Have fun, and give Linux a try. Try some of the Live CD distros so that you can test drive some different flavors to find one that's right for you.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 01:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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