Because a lot happens on this pale blue dot
I got tired of waiting for my iPhone to auto-backup when I quickly wanted to sync a few songs or videos before going to bed. A quick Google search brought up a bunch of results for Mac, but not much for Windows. After some searching, I found the solution to disable the auto-backup. I wrote a little program that will enable or disable the auto-backup feature in iTunes when you plug in your iPhone.
Continue reading ‘Disable auto-backup of iPhone in iTunes (Windows)’
I don’t even know why I called Linksys’ “tech support” in the first place. I guess I was pretty desperate. Have I not learned nothing over the years? After finding nothing but people who are having the same problems as me and not getting any answers from Linksys, I decided to try to figure it out.
The issue that I was having (as well as all those other people) was that the WUSB54GC would drop connection. For some people it was random. For me, it was when I downloaded large amounts of data. I couldn’t visit Google Maps or Google Images. If I’d open a few websites in seperate tabs, depending on how much content each site had, I’d dropped connection. Of course going to Linksys was a waste of time. They haven’t updated the drivers since 1/2007. Don’t even get me started with the phone support.
UPDATE - 11/4/08: Unfortuantely, the site that hosts the file does not allow direct downloads. You must go to the site to get the download, so my program is pretty much worthless. I recommend using PeerBlock — which is a spin-off of PeerGuardian but it actually works in Vista/7 (both 32 and 64 bit).
If you know of a link to a direct download, please let me know and I’ll update the application to download it.
UPDATE - 12/3/08: It appears that the URL has been changed. I was in the middle of updating the program but the URL that it changed too is down as well. Bluetack is having an issue finding a host for the ipfilter.dat file. As soon as the download is backup, I’ll release 0.2 with a few additional features. Thanks.
I recently wrote a little program that you can use to download an ipfilter.dat to block IP addresses when using uTorrent. It really isn’t anything fancy, just saves you the time of downloading it, extracting it, renaming it, and then copying it to the correct location.
The list is downloaded from B.I.S.S. (Bluetack) which is updated every week or so.
Prerequisites:
Usage:
You will see all blocked IP requests on that Logger tab.
Manual Install:
For added security, check out PeerGuardian 2.
If you experience any issues with my program, feel free to post a comment.
I thought it would be fun to focus on some of the non-conventional USB gadgets that are available for your computer. By now everyone has a USB thumb drive and/or USB hard drives. Check out some other uses for your extra USB ports.
If you’ve been following the news for the last several months, you’ve probably heard about the Geek Squad and employees stealing data and porn off of customer’s computers. If you haven’t, head over to The Consumerist and catch up. I worked at Best Buy for several years, with the majority of them in the Geek Squad. I thought that I’d share my thoughts and experiences that I had with the Geek Squad and try to explain to you that, at one point, the Geek Squad was actually a good idea and a reputable company despite the “geek” gimmick.
I thought it would be interesting to focus the lesser known freeware applications that are available instead of just listing all the popular freeware applications (Firefox, SmartFTP, etc). I’ve tried to attach a screenshot with each program so you can get a feel about what the program does before downloading it.
Feel free to comment if you think I missed something and would like it added. Remember that the focus of this post is not to point out well known pieces of software but to focus on the lesser knowns.
Here is just a quick post. If you use Firefox and Gmail I highly recommend getting this plugin. It’s called Better Gmail. It makes several enhancements to the Gmail interface.
This plugin is a compilation of over 30 scripts that change how Gmail works. My favorite part of the plugin is the skinning portion. If nothing else, enabling Gmail Air from the plugin’s options is worth it alone. Here is a screenshot.
Check out the website for Better Gmail to see what this plugin has to offer.
If you’re looking for quick and free solution for remote desktop software, no need to look any farther. I recently came across a free service from LogMeIn. In the past when using VNC, I had to map it to port 80, 21, or any other highly used port that my work couldn’t block. I always hated the idea that my PC sat there with an open port such as port 80.
Here is where LogMeIn is different than your traditional remote desktop software suites. It utilizes 256-bit SSL encryption thus removing the need to firewall changes (assuming you have a standard, non-strict firewall). You then simply go to the website and log in. It will list your computer(s) that are available to be connected to.
It works with both Vista (though not advertised to, I’ve been using it for awhile with no issues) and XP and best of all it’s FREE.
I know that a simple Google search reveals similar sites, but I thought that I’d bring it to the attention of everyone here in case they might have missed it.
Notepad++ is a free replacement to the standard Notepad that comes with Windows XP and Vista. It is small and lightweight. This is an awesome program for anyone. You don’t need to be a programmer/developer to benefit from this application.
Features:
With a few easy steps, you can easily replace your default Notepad in Vista or XP with this one.
Continue reading ‘Free Notepad Replacement For Windows Vista and XP’
This tweak can easily be found all over the internet. This tweak is for broadband users (do people even use dialup anymore?). When you go to a website, Firefox will make a single request to the web page at a time. This tweak changes that so Firefox makes several requests at once, thus speeding up how long it takes for page to load.
Enjoy a slightly faster internet experience.
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