Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Google Cr-48 ChromeOS Pilot Laptop Giveaway.

I just found this and hopefully some people will see this before it is too late.
I would love to beta test one of these.


Google is sending out free laptops for users to test ChromeOS.  The hardware, codenamed Cr-48, will not be sold by Google. These are for their pilot/beta testing.

They are accepting applications until December 21st 2010, if you wish to sign up the the url is

http://www.google.com/chromeos/

Specs on the Cr-48 ChromeOS Laptop are as follows:
Atom N455 1.5GHz Single Core CPU
12.1″ matte screen
16GB SanDisk SSD with Hynix RAM Chips
Full Size Keyboard
802.11n WiFi
8 hrs active use battery life
8 days on standby
Webcam
Free 3g from Verizon (100Mb /mo)

http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html


Sunday, December 19, 2010

A Quick Wikileaks Rant

The recent release of over 250,000 private diplomatic cables from US embassies on WikiLeaks is equivalent to someone releasing the contents of your private text messages to those people who you were talk trash about.

Although embarrassing, the US should be relieved. It's like a giant weight was lifted off its shoulders. Now everyone is saying aloud what the US really felt inside about certain countries and leaders. Since the Cold War, the lines between diplomacy and espionage have been blurred. You have spies posing as diplomats under the protection of the host country they are spying on.

One of the funniest cables is about the President of Kazakhstan and how he likes to dance at nightclubs alone and get wildly drunk. He also hired Elton John for his son-in-law’s birthday party (for a record $1.5M) and Nelly Furtado for his daughter. The real outrage should be that Elton John can make $1.5M in one night but still manage to beg for money for all the charities that are dear to his heart.

But back to the release of private communication, imagine what would happen if people who thought they were your friends, found out what you really thought about them? Mark might not invite you over to his potluck holiday party if he found out you resented having to cook a meal for yourself AND strangers. The purpose of a party is to party, not slave over an oven trying to balance the dietary needs of strangers?

Sally would be so embarrassed of the realization that her body odor is not just in her imagination and that you have assigned Homeland Security-style codes to her worst days. "CODE ORANGE = Sally used the all natural deodorant today, watch out!"

The US should be breathing a sigh of relief. No longer does it have to act fake in front of these nations. We might have fewer friends around the world, but at least we don’t have to live a lie and act like we enjoy when the President of Kazakhstan gets drunk and feeds a washed-up musician’s coke habits.

But the bigger story that people are ignoring is that the State Department is using embassy staff to collect information on foreign leaders and sending it back to the CIA, the Pentagon and NSA. That’s a little disrespectful to your host country if you ask me. If you invited me to your house, I wouldn’t take mental notes of the prescriptions in your medicine cabinet and publish that information. Or go through your internet search history and try to connect the dots between “When is Miley Cyrus turning 18?” and “cute birthday gifts”.

Whatever STD you are trying to cure before her birthday is your business. Hope you at least got her a nice card!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

More Free Icons

Find Icons

Find Icons is an icon search engine that has 300,770 icons and 2,550 icon sets. This is the world's largest searchable icon database. Worth a look for sure.



Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Free Icons for Web Design

I have been looking around lately for free resources for icons for web design.
I have found quite a few sites that have great icons, ect. for free.
Over the next few days I will release one link a day.
Today's site for free icons is Icon Finder. This is a free icon search engine that has 146,370 or 685 icon sets.


A quick search of Blogger for instance turned up 56 results.





Even more impressive, I ended up finding the Halloween Social Icons

I like the Punisher Blogger Icon.

I will be posting more sites like these in the coming days. If anything, it will kill some time looking around.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Quick Reference Guides.

Last night I was looking for a quick reference guide for Google Voice and came across a site that I thought worth sharing. It seems to have links to quick reference guides to just about anything you can imagine.

The site is http://devcheatsheet.com/
The site is definitely worth a bookmark.

5 Tips for Utilizing Wireless Internet on Mobile Phone

Using wireless internet from a mobile phone to perform business tasks or even play online games has become massively popular. Nearly every new mobile phone offered today has wireless internet capabilities that can be accessed by the touch of a button or two, provided you have a data plan. While the convenience of online access everywhere and anywhere is easy to take for granted, it’s important to maximize your mobile phone’s wireless Internet connection by following these 5 tips:

Wireless Firewall Security

A firewall helps prevent other Internet users from accessing your computer and data through an Internet or local network connection. Firewalls are extremely common in wired connections, but are just as important when using a free wireless hotspot or your own wireless connection from a paid service provider. Mobile systems such as Microsoft Windows Mobile and the Android platform have built-in security measures, but it’s best to also utilize a third party firewall program purpose-made to protect mobile wireless Internet connections. Because hotspots and wireless hubs are exposed to a greater number of connections than simply a standard wired Internet connection, it’s important to keep your data safe with a firewall system that works with your mobile phone.

Online Storage to Keep Your Business Going

Cloud-based online storage systems provide you with the ability to save, access and edit files online from any computer equipped with an online connection and the specific storage system being used. This means that you can work on documents on your mobile phone, save them in a storage program such as Dropbox, Humyo or Mozy and get direct access to the same documents on a shared computer. This is ideal for businesses as it allows many computers access to an online storage space where documents can be created, saved and manipulated. Now you won’t have to keep track of e-mails and their attachments when you and your colleagues can access documents online.

Plan It All Out

One of the benefits of utilizing wireless Internet service on your mobile phone is having instantaneous access to the Internet at many different locations. Technically, this means that you don’t have to plan on where and how you’re going to access the Internet ahead of time. However, it’s important to maximize your wireless Internet access by actually using it to plan ahead. A wireless Internet browser can be used to find your next WiFi hotspot based on specific locations. This way – whether you’re dependent on free hotspots or want to go someplace where ordinary providers offer no coverage – you’ll know the exact location of the nearest WiFi spot.

Alternatively, if your mobile phone Internet provider gives you excellent coverage and you’re in a sharing mood, you can adjust your adapter or network settings to share your Internet connection with nearby folks.

Better to Have Too Many Apps than None

Whether you have a G4 iPhone, a phone using an Android platform, a Blackberry or any other well supported smart phone, there are applications out there designed to offer you the solutions to many different types of problems. Take advantage of your wireless Internet connection from your mobile phone to find the apps you need for your business or personal pleasures. Provider specific app marketplaces can become your haven for time-killing mobile games, eBook readers to enjoy your favorite novels on the go, messaging systems to track of your contacts from multiple services, document programs to create, edit and send various file formats and many other app types. The ability for large and small developers to create apps for highly specific tasks means that you’ll almost always be able to use your mobile phone’s wireless Internet to find an application for your needs.

Tethered Mobile Phone Modem

Using a tethered modem will turn your mobile phone’s wireless capability into a wireless Internet connection for your laptop. A tethered mobile modem is ideal if you don’t have a wireless Internet card or service for your laptop and are desperate for Internet connectivity. Certain providers such as AT&T allow you to create tether connections on their data plans at an added cost. Providers that recognize tethering will have free software programs designed to help you set up a tethered connection. Other platforms may not officially have a tethering option but have 3rd party apps that will help you set up and maintain a connection between your smart phone and your laptop.

Wireless Internet on your mobile phone is a powerful tool and it’s important to utilize it as such. Don’t be afraid to maximize your phone’s data plan and wireless Internet capabilities to create a Internet connection for your laptop, download apps, locate the next WiFi hotspot and access documents from an online storage program on the go; all while staying secure with a mobile wireless firewall program. With these 5 steps, you’ll be ready to turn your mobile phone’s wireless Internet into your vital business partner or personal entertainment system.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Podnutz Laptop Repair Videos

Although I know how to repair laptops, I watched some of these recently and was surprised at how informative they were. The entire collection is 40 hours of video and worth the purchase price of $54.95.
I would recommend anyone wanting to know more about repairing laptops check it out.

Here is a description.


Want To Learn How to Fix Laptops? Check out these Videos
Laptop repair can be tricky. There are hidden screws all over the place, a certain order you have to pull it apart and sometimes the spare parts are hard to find. Laptops are also prone to damage that a desktop wouldnt normally have such as being dropped or having a damaged DC jack.

Steve Cherubino, who was computer technician until he went full time podcasting has worked on thousands of laptop computers in his shop and would now like to share his laptop repair knowledge with you in the form of high definition, narrated, downloadable videos.

He covers everything you would want to know about repairing laptops such as:


•How to replace a motherboard
•How to replace an LCD Screen
•What to do when the laptop keeps shutting down
•How to fix DC power jacks
•The crucial difference between a bad screen and a bad inverter board
•How to replace hinges
•Where Steve buys all his parts
•The best way to go about taking a laptop apart
•How to solder
•The art of fixing AC adapters
•How to handle a laptop that has had liquid spilled in it
•What to do when a laptop overheats
•How to replace CD/DVD drives, RAM, processors, hard Drives and wireless cards








http://www.laptoprepairvideos.com/

Sunday, December 5, 2010

FalconFour’s Ultimate Boot CD/USB 4.0

This is my favorite UBCD. I highly recommend downloading this. You can find this on the usual torrent sites.



Behold, it has arrived. F4UBCD 4.0, the latest version of the latest and greatest utilities. Out of the magical mysteries of corporate politics comes, at long last, the most up-to-date version of the BootCD in existence. I’ll let the readme and NFO files take it from here…

I’ve put a good amount of work and thought into creating and refining this new version, and it’s always rewarding to see people actually using it. I’ve completely rebuilt the whole thing from scratch, starting with Hiren’s BootCD 10.6 (which this collection is built on), and building everything out around it in such a way as to allow less experienced (but still knowledgable!) users to easily add and modify the tools in the set, so that things aren’t “baked into” the disc the way the HBCD tools are – good luck modifying a UHA archive! So I set out to make the F4UBCD flexible, starting with just a tweak here, a line there, and a whole boatload of batch code.

And, it bears repeating:
Warning: This disc is not an autofix tool. It is intended to be used by (potentially underpaid) computer repair professionals. It can be used to cause data loss as well as other “not good” things. However, it is designed to recover data & restore working order to PCs. It can also serve as an excellent learning resource. Please exercise sanity & caution using this disc.

On the Disc…
  • Hiren’s BootCD 10.6 minus Linux and a few others.
    Plus F4UBCD tweaks & addons: 
    • ImgBurn 2.5.1.0
    • Active File Recovery
    • CCleaner 2.34 with PE extension
    • HD Tune Pro 4.50 Trial
    • Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder 2.0.8
    • MyDefrag 4.3.1 w/ FalconFour’s FullOptimize script
    • NirSoft utilities collection current as of 7/28/10
    • NTPWEDIT
    • RegEditPE 1.0c (Beta with some adjustments for cleaner operation)
    • ServicesPE
    • Super Pi 1.5 Mod
    • TreeSize Personal v5.3.4
    • SpinRite 6.0 (under Hard Disk Tools)
  • ERD Commander / Microsoft DaRT 5.0 (WinXP)
  • MS DaRT 6.0 (Vista)
  • Dell MBR Recovery Disk
  • Memtest86+ 4.10
  • Kon-Boot 1.1
  • Shiny graphics that make you feel good
Now playing at a friendly torrent site near you. As usual, jfgi.

Source: FalconFour

Saturday, December 4, 2010

The 40 Most Popular Tools For Your System Admin Bag

Tool Name & Description URL
7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio. http://www.7-zip.org/
Acronis True Image with Universal Restore - Disk Imaging tool http://www.acronis.com/
Belarc Advisor - Audits installed software, list keys, hardware, Microsoft patches, and generates a report http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Clonezilla is an OpenSource clone system with unicasting and multicasting! Goodbye to Ghost http://clonezilla.org
CPUz. Accurate PC motherboard, RAM, graphics card details and MUCH more without opening up the box http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
cURL a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS and FILE. http://curl.haxx.se/
DBAN - Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. http://www.dban.org/
Desktop Restore is a tiny shell extension that records the position of your desktop icons and lets you easily restore your favorite desktop layout. http://www.midiox.com/desktoprestore.htm
ExamDiff is a good file-comparison tool http://www.prestosoft.com/edp_examdiff.asp
File-Rescue Plus is an easy to use recovery utility to remotely scan WindowsHard Drives, and removable media http://www.softwareshelf.com/products/file_rescue_plus_enterprise.htm
GParted is the GNOME partition editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions. http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
InfraRecorder is a graphical tool for burning ISO images. Supports many DVD and CD drives that are available, burn ISO images, CDs and DVDs. http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5
Iometer is great to pound on hard drives - a good I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool http://www.iometer.org/
Kdiff3 is a file-comparison tool that does unicode, editing, directories and 3 way merge, all for free. http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/
Kon-Boot - Log into any local or domain account on a pc without a password. Very cool tool. http://www.piotrbania.com/all/kon-boot/
Lansweeper is a network inventory tool that performs hardware scanning, software scanning, and reporting on Active Directory (AD) users. Needs SQL. http://www.lansweeper.com/
LUA BugLight - For finding out where a program hangs with it run under restricted mode so you can make system changes http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2006/08/07/LuaBuglight.aspx
MyDefrag-4.0 - Flexible Hard Drive Defrag program with a scripting language http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
Nmap Security Scanner version 5.00. http://nmap.org/
Norton removal tool. LOL: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/Norton-Removal-Tool.shtml
Notepad++ features a tabbed interface, syntax highlighting for all popular programming and scripting languages, bracket matching, and macro recording. http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/download.php
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor - Boot CD that can change local account passwords http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/
Paint.NET is a huge improvement over Windows' built-in Paint program for image manipulation. http://www.getpaint.net/download.html
Password Safe allows you to safely and easily create a secured and encrypted user name/password list. http://passwordsafe.sf.net
PEESR - Periodic Emailed Event Summary Report. Order today and save 10% with coupon code SUNB-PXTO-SAUG http://jntae.com/peesr/peesr.html
PING makes a sector-based image copy of a disk partition. The bootable PING ISO tool copies a full system disk to on a bigger disk. http://ping.windowsdream.com
SpinRite Boot CD - Hard Disk recovery tool http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
Sunbelt Sandbox. Upload suspicious files to the Sunbelt Labs and have them scanned. Similar to VirusTotal http://www.sunbeltsecurity.com
Superscan 3.0 - fast little port scanner. A quick way to tell whats on the network. http://www.foundstone.com/us/resources/proddesc/superscan3.htm
Sysinternals - An sysadmin's best friend - especially Process Explorer that shows why a PC is slow http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
Total Commander is a powerful shareware file manager for all flavors of Windows http://www.ghisler.com/
TrueCrypt. Brilliant file and whole-disk encryption http://www.truecrypt.org
UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. http://www.ubcd4win.com/
Ultimate Boot CD has over 100 tools for diagnostics and repair. http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
Ultra VNC. Say no more: http://www.uvnc.com
UltraTech's list of tools that needs some updating but has dozens of popular tools and their links http://KB.UltraTech-llc.com/?File=Utils.TXT
USB Deview. Untangle all those devices sensibly. In fact, most of Nir's utilities are pretty good http://www.nirsoft.net/
VIPRE Rescue is a command-line utility that will scan and clean an infected computer that is so infected that programs cannot be easily run http://live.sunbeltsoftware.com/
VirtualBox is a powerful, free x86 virtualization tool for Windows, Linux and more http://www.virtualbox.org/
Voidtools - everything search engine. Locate files and folders by name instantly. http://www.voidtools.com/
WinDirStat is a very good disk space usage visualization and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows http://windirstat.info/
Windows Installer CleanUp Utility for failed or partially installed software http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
Wireshark is a popular network protocol analyzer (sniffer), used in many industries and educational institutions. http://www.wireshark.org/
XML Notepad is a specialized MS XML editor with a small footprint. It has a Tree View and a Node Text View and a built-in XML Diff capability. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=72d6aa49-787d-4118-ba5f-4f30fe913628
ZoomIt lets you magnify portions of your screen while doing demos and presos, as well as draw on and annotate the screen. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb897434.aspx


Source:Sunbelt Software

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Datamancer's Steampunk Laptop



This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts.








You can check out more pics and details at http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm

Any Idea what This is??

My friend emailed me this and asked me what I thought.