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Google Voice "Lite" Gives You All the Great Features Without a New Number

Bart Salisbury — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:47:50 -0500

No matter how innovative the big boys are, the minions lurking about in the ‘tubes’ keep on beating them to the punch on new, innovative features. In this case the big boy is Google Voice, which offers you a phone number along with a bag stuffed with nifty features like voicemail, voicemail transcription, custom greetings, free text-messaging, blocking unwanted callers, and call screening. The only drawback is you have to use Google Voice’s assigned number, which is a problem for us who have our identity intimately tied to an existing mobile number.

The hackers on the net didn’t let this slow them down, however, and a workaround came about pretty quickly. Keep your existing mobile number, just forward your unanswered calls to your Google Voice number. The process is pretty simple, in fact. You can find it explained in posts at TechnologyCrowd and Lifehacker.

Well hack no more. Google Voice has taken the hint and now offers a ‘lite’ version with this feature. According to The Official Google Blog if you sign up with your existing number you’ll get access Google Voice’s voicemail features. If you already have a Google Voice account the process of forwarding your voicemail from your mobile numbers has been simplified.

Image Credit: Google

Custom Firmware Rocks! How to Hack Gadgets with New Software

Alex Castle, Norman Chan, and Dave Murphy — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:30:00 -0500

While we're big fans of the proven awesomeness of open-source software, we don't automatically download every free application that's labeled as an open-source project. What make more sense is the use of open-source as the tool that effects some kind of massive or otherwise unreachable change in a common device. Case in point is open-source firmware, named not for any philosophical belief behind its creation, but because few would want to heft the banner for these changes themselves. After all, creativity comes from a wide range of sources and inputs--as does software testers. You sure wouldn't want to be the one person working on third-party iPhone firmware, bricking device after device in a quest to add additional functionality that Apple didn't first design.

But that kind of unintended funcitonality is the sole benefit to open-source firmware. Throw those aspirations of community membership and open-source allegiance out the window: You want to increase the power of your device akin to a Sim tinkering his or her hardware to gain mechanical skill points. There's no shame in that. In fact, you can accomplish much by adopting third-party firmware in place of standard manufacturer packages. For example, building increased sound codecs into your MP3 player of choice, or adding on-screen level meters to your digital SLR. You can even turn your router into a bridge, perfect for extending the range of your neighbor's wireless signal so you can thieve his connection from additional locations in your apartment. You can also brick your device.

We jest, but only partially. For the danger of running third-party firmware--safe as many of the packages can seem to be--is that you could render your device of choice unusable. It happens to "real" firmware upgrades; it can happen to "unofficial" firmware upgrades as well, only I venture that you'll probably find more problems in the latter scenario than with a manufacturer's tried-and-tested update. But still, the benefits can often outweigh the risks, especially if you're looking to extend your legacy devices with additional features. An entire ocean of open-source firmware fixes awaits your perusal -- we take a look at some outstanding examples of open-source firmware, and teach you how to install them on your own gadgets!

MP3 Players

For most people, an MP3 player serves a pretty narrow purpose: it plays music, maybe a video here or there if you’ve got a newer model, and might have a handful of applications. All in all, though, MP3 players are rarely treated as anything more than tiny, portable jukeboxes, which is a shame, because as gadgets they’ve got the potential for so much more. That’s why, in this article, we show you how to install custom Rockbox firmware and breathe new life into your trusty old MP3 player.

Sony's PSP

For as long as Sony’s PlayStation Portable has been on the market, it’s been a juicy target for hackers. With burly hardware (for a handheld) and a gorgeous screen, it just begs to play homebrew, and lots of PSP owners have cracked their devices to do just that. Unfortunately, Sony has had other plans for their handheld, and has released dozens of firmware updates and several hardware revisions to make it harder to hack the PSPs handheld.

As such, there’s no one hack that works on all PSP, and in fact some PSPs are completely unhackable. There is, however, one fairly easy method that works on most consoles, which is what we illustrate in this article.

BIOS

OpenBIOS and Coreboot are two examples of the open source world's answer to proprietary BIOS firmware. Flashing your motherboard with either of these can be an anxiety-inducing process, but you should be able to tap into faster loading speeds if you're successful. Everyone wants a speedy, netbook-style BIOS loadup, right?

Routers

Third-party router software has been around for a while, but we can’t help but keep recommending it to users who want to add undocumented features to their home network. Our favorite router firmware package is still Tomato, which we favor for its compatibility with a wide range of router brands and models, user-friendly interface, and powerful feature set. We show you how to upgrade your router’s firmware to the newest version of Tomato and then configure the Quality of Service settings to manage your network traffic.

E-readers

Yes, you can even get open-source firmware for your electronic reader. The pickings aren't vast, but firmware like OpenInkPot can update your device with new settings and better performance, as well as give you access to additional software reader options, eliminate the necessity of DRM for your device, and even add Wi-Fi capabilities to a network-incompatible E-reader.

Point and Shoot Digital Cameras

We love point-and-shoot pocket cameras for their small size and ease of use, but we lament their relatively paltry feature sets when compared to more expensive DSLR models. The good news, for owners of the popular Canon PowerShot cameras, is that your consumer-grade gadget can be upgraded with custom software to endow it with professional features like RAW image recording and live histogram feedback. CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) is an easy-to-install software package created by a savvy group of programmers to supercharge the Canon PowerShot. We show you how to safely install and configure this free firmware add-on with no risk to your camera.

SLRs

The Canon 5D Mark II camera is pretty impressive in its own right, given the kind of video that this full-frame, digital SLR can shoot. But don't let it be said that accomplishment ever got in the way of open-source innovation. That's where the open-source firmware package Magic Lantern comes into play. Amongst the features it adds to this jam-packed camera include on-screen audio meters (ideal for the amateur filmmaker), manual gain control, zebra stripes, and crop marks for different aspect ratios.

Digital Media Players

Western Digital's WDTV is kind of like a magic media streaming box. You plug any USB storage device (Flash key, portable hard drive, etc) into its two USB ports and it'll play any movie, picture, or audio file that it finds, outputting your media to your big screen TV via HDMI. Western Digital has done a great job updating its own official firmware to boost compatibility with almost every media format you can think of (yes, including MKV packages with subtitles), but the open-source offering takes the WDTV's functionality even further. B-Rad's WDLXTV firmware adds support for USB optical drives, USB hubs, limited ethernet connectivity, custom GUIs, and an application package that turns the WDTV into a mini-server!

Anything Else?

This is just a brief introduction to the world of open-source firmware. Hopefully it's gotten you stewing about all the different electronic devices you can hack in the comfort of your own dwelling. But just in case you need a little more inspiration, is anyone else out there running open-source firmware that deserves mentioning? Leave a comment to help flush out the list for your fellow readers!

How-To: Hack Your Canon PowerShot Digital Camera

Norman Chan — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:37 -0500

Find the Right Software

Download the version of CHDK software that’s appropriate for your Canon PowerShot. CHDK only works with a camera using Canon’s Digic II or newer image sensor—any PowerShot made after 2005 should work. To find the right download, you’ll have to first find your existing firmware version number. Using Notepad or any other text-editing tool, create and save an empty file named ver.req. You’ll have to disable the “Hide extensions for known file types” setting under Windows Explorer’s Folder Options in order to change the file extension to .req.

Using a USB card reader, drop this file into the root directory of your SD card (not while the card is in the camera). Put the card back in your camera, turn on the camera under playback mode, and press the “set” and “disp.” buttons together. If done properly, the camera should display the firmware version number, i.e., Firmware Ver GM1.00C.

Next, head over to the CHDK download site and find your camera model and firmware version. Download the corresponding Zip file under the column labeled Complete.

Load CHDK

With your SD card back in a card reader and connected to your PC, extract the entire contents of the software package into the root directory of the card. Now you’re ready to run the CHDK software. Put the card back in your camera again and turn on your camera under playback mode (the lens should be retracted). Hit the Menu button, and scroll down to the bottom of the first menu tab. You should see an option for “firm update.” Select this and choose Yes when prompted. This is an entirely safe process since CHDK installs additional software instead of replacing the existing firmware in your camera.

CHDK should automatically load in a few seconds and display its logo. You can now switch the camera to capture mode to begin using the new features. Keep in mind that since your core firmware hasn’t actually been modified, CHDK will be disabled every time you turn off your camera, and you’ll have to manually enable it with every boot. We’ll go over how to make CHDK automatically boot later.

Configure the New Features

The first thing you’ll notice with CHDK enabled is that the onscreen display (OSD) shows new information, including the remaining battery life as a percentage, focus distance in meters, and a digital clock.

To enter the special CHDK menu, you need to enter Alt mode by pressing the Shortcut button on your camera (this button is later configurable). When in Alt mode, you’ll see an <ALT> indicator at the bottom of the OSD. Pressing the Menu button will bring up the CHDK menu, where you can enable a live histogram, zebra stripes (to indicate overexposure), and turn on RAW recording mode. The available feature set depends on your PowerShot model, so check the official CHDK wiki for more information.

Boot CHDK at Startup

If you don’t want to manually load CHDK every time you use your camera, you can set it to auto-load, as long as your SD card is smaller than 2GB and not formatted for FAT32 (most aren’t by default). From the same Zip file you downloaded earlier, copy the PS.fir and DISKBOOT.bin files to the root directory of your SD card. Enter the CHDK menu using Alt mode and navigate to Miscellaneous Stuff. Select “Make Card Bootable” and hit the set button. Take out the SD card and slide its physical locking mechanism into the “lock” position. The next time you turn on the camera, CHDK should automatically start up as well.

10 Essential Gmail Hacks and Add-ons!

Josh Kampschmidt — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:25:10 -0500

Chances are you know what Gmail is and have been using it for quite some time, even if Google’s service is technically still in beta. But did you know that Gmail can be used for many other practical functions other than sending and receiving e-mail? With the appropriate extensions and setting hacks, you can make Gmail do things that other web-based e-mail services and even some desktop clients cannot. In this guide, we will show you how to implement the ten hidden features you need to know about Gmail and introduce you to five of our favorite Gmail Labs add-ons. You may already know or use some of these features, but there are sure to be a few in here that you do not.

Use Gmail as a Hard Drive

Gmail Drive is a simple shell extension that creates a virtual file system using your Gmail account storage. Since Gmail’s storage has steadily increased, this gives you a very good size flash drive. Right now Gmail offers around 7GB of free storage.

Download Gmail Drive from this link. Save the file to your Desktop. Unzip the download and doubleclick on the Setup file to begin the installation.

If you get a window that says navigation to the website was canceled, ignore it. The program was set up correctly as long as it the drive appears under My Computer.

Double-click on the Gmail Drive system folder. It will prompt you to login, so enter your username and password for your Gmail account. We also suggest that you click the box next to Auto-Login so you do not have to repeat this process in the future.

After Gmail Drive logs into Gmail, you can start dragging and dropping files on to this virtual drive. Gmail will upload the files to your inbox, so make sure you are connected to the Internet.

When you login to your Gmail account, you will notice the uploaded files look similar to regular e-mails .

If you want, you can create a filter so these attachments go to a designated place, but more on filters later.

Download all Gmail attachments

If you have a lot of e-mail, chances are you have several attachments you need. You could go through all the e-mail and manually download all the attachments, but that would take forever. For this, we will need Mozilla Thunderbird and need to set up Gmail’s IMAP feature. After that, we will use Attachment Extractor and retrieve the attachments. The reason we are using Mozilla Thunderbird is because it’s free and has the capability to use add-ons.

First, we need to setup Gmail’s IMAP. Login to Gmail, click on the Settings button and then click on the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. Under IMAP access enable IMAP and then save the changes. Since we don’t need to have Gmail open while completing the next couple of steps, you can close Gmail.

Download Mozilla Thunderbird if you don’t have it already. You can find it here.

Double-click the file and begin installing Thunderbird using the simple installation wizard.

When you first open the program, you will get a new account setup wizard. Make sure “E-mail account” is selected and then click Next. In the “Your Name” box, enter your name, or whatever name you want to appear on your sent e-mails. In the “E-mail Address” field, enter your Gmail address in the format username@gmail.com.

In the “Incoming Server” field, type: imap.gmail.com

In the “Outgoing Server” field, type: smtp.gmail.com

In the Incoming and Outgoing username fields on the next screen, enter your complete Gmail address

On the next screen, you can name the Account whatever you wish, the name doesn’t affect how the attachments are downloaded.

After you finish the setup wizard, click on Tools and select Account Settings. Under Server Settings, change the port to 993 and set the Security Settings to SSL. These are the default settings Gmail uses and must be set up properly in order to receive email.

Click on “Outgoing Server (SMTP)” and click on the Edit button. Change the port to 587 and select TLS under “Use secure connection”.

Then click Ok and ok on the Account Settings window.

Click on the Get mail button and enter your Gmail password. Thunderbird will retrieve your e-mail and download the messages into your Inbox. Every time you re-open Thunderbird, the program will ask you for your password for security reasons. If you get tired of entering the password, put click the checkbox to have it remember the password.

Minimize Mozilla Thunderbird; we need to setup Attachment Extractor now.

Download Attachment Extractor. Save the file to your Desktop. Bring up Thunderbird, click Tools and select Add-ons. Click on the Install button. Navigate and find Attachment Extractor and open it. Now click on the Install Now button and Thunderbird will install the extension. When requested to restart Thunderbird, click on Restart Thunderbird.

When Thunderbird restarts, click on the attachment button to sort the e-mails by attachments. This will make all the e-mails with attachments go to the top.

Hold down the Ctrl key and click on all the e-mails with attachments or at least the ones you want to download. Right click on one of the messages and select Extract Attachments To. Click on Browse and create a new folder for these attachments.

The attachments will begin downloading to your computer and will give you a progress window. After they are downloaded, you will have a folder on your Desktop with all of the attachments.

Manage Multiple Gmail Accounts

Gmail Manager is a Mozilla Firefox add-on that allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts without having to login to each of them individually. Since most of you probably have more than one Gmail account, this will be a very useful Firefox add-on.

Download Gmail Manager from Mozilla's web site. Click on the Add to Firefox button and install the add-on like any other add-on.

After Firefox restarts, click the small 'M' in the bottom, right hand corner of the screen.

Click on the Add button to add a Gmail account and type in your e-mail address and password into the dialog box.

When the program returns to the main screen, select “Automatically login to this account at startup” and click the Apply button.

If you have another Gmail account, click on the Add button again and enter the e-mail address and password for that account.

After you are done adding all of your Gmail accounts, click on the Ok button. When you open your web browser, you will notice in the bottom, right hand corner that it lists the e-mail messages present on your Gmail accounts.

To change which Gmail account is listed, right click on the e-mail and select your other account.

Share Links with GmailThis!

GmailThis! is a useful bookmarklet that allows you to quickly send an e-mail message that includes a link to a certain webpage.

To use GmailThis, click here.

Drag the GmailThis! link located just below the “Big, Important News” warning into your browsers links bar or live bookmarks area.

If you did it correctly, you should now have a new bookmark or live bookmark named GmailThis!

When you find a webpage you want to e-mail to someone click on the GmailThis! bookmarklet and log in to your Gmail account. Type in their e-mail address and click send after typing a short message explaining what the link is.

Alternatively, if you want to be lazy, you can use this bookmarklet to send someone an e-mail. Delete the link out of the body and change the subject of it. It will send just like any other e-mail.

Use Gmail while Offline

If you have ever feared not having Internet access and not being able to access that one important e-mail, this one is for you!

To enable this feature, you need to login to Gmail and click on the Settings button in the top right corner of the screen. Now click on the Labs tab.

Locate the Offline lab feature. Click on Enable and select Save Changes.

The page will refresh and go back to your Inbox. In the top right corner of the screen, you will now have a new option named “Offline”.

When you are ready to download the messages to your computer, click on the Offline button. When the pop-up comes up explaining what Offline Gmail is, click on the Install button. It will open a new window to the Gears web page. This is a required download, so you have to download it. Gears is the application that lets you store your e-mail on your local computer.

When Gears is done installing, you will have to restart the web browser, click on "Restart Browsers Now" when you are ready.

When you re-open Gmail, you will get a security warning stating that Gmail is trying to use Gears. Put a checkmark in the box next to that states “I trust this site. Allow it to use Gears” and click on the Allow button. It will also ask if you want to create a shortcut on your Desktop, Start Menu and Quick Launch bar. We recommend you create one of these shortcuts, put a checkmark in the appropriate boxes.

Gmail will start synchronizing your e-mail to your computer, please be patient.

When you are offline, just click on the appropriate shortcut and Gmail will open up with all of your e-mail since your last synchronization. Gmail will automatically synchronize when you login to Gmail on this computer, so no need to worry about manually synchronizing.

Never Forget to Attach Documents

Forgotten Attachment Detector is a very useful feature if you frequently e-mail people with attachments.

To turn on this feature, login to Gmail and click on the Settings button in the top right hand corner. Now click on the Labs tab. Scroll down until you find the Forgotten Attachment Detector and Enable it. Before you exit, make sure you click on the Save Changes button at the top or bottom of the page; otherwise, the changes will not be saved.

If you want to test it, compose a new e-mail and mention in the body that you are attaching something. When you click on the Send button, Gmail will ask if you really want to send the message.

Filter Friends and Foes

Filters are one of the best features included with Gmail. You can do almost anything with filters. You can categorize your e-mail, automatically delete certain e-mail and even flag certain e-mails for review.

Also included with Gmail is the ability to use the plus sign as a filter. At first glance, this doesn’t seem incredibly useful, but what if you get a lot of spam e-mail or you want to flag one of your friend’s e-mails for review? This is where the plus sign would become useful.

Since there is no limit to the number of filter combinations you can have, we are going to limit the filter discussion to the plus sign.

First, we need to set up the filter, so login to Gmail and click the Settings tab at the top right hand corner of the screen. Now click on the Filters tab and select “Create a new filter.”

Let us assume that you are receiving over 50 spam messages a day in your Gmail inbox. Therefore, for this example, you would use something similar to maximumpc+spam@gmail.com . Since you are using an account that is different from ours, you will have to type your e-mail address instead of ours.

Type your e-mail address +spam as shown and click on Next Step. Select the automatically delete option. This will send the e-mail directly to the trash so you don’t have to delete it manually.

Now whenever you sign up for something that could possibly be spam, just type youremail+spam@gmail.com and it will automatically delete the e-mail for you.

This doesn’t only work for spam, you can have many other filters that flag friend’s e-mails, star important e-mails, and do many other things. Just be sure to create the filter first as shown above and give the appropriate e-mail.

More Filter Fun and Importing

Now that you can import filters into Gmail, it is simple to create custom filters and export them.

Unfortunately, this Labs feature does not work with Offline Gmail enabled, so you will have to disable that Labs feature in order to use this one.

Right click on the link here and select "Save Link As."

Save the file to your Desktop. Login to Gmail and click on Settings and select the Labs tab. Enable the Filter import/export lab feature. This will allow you to merge the file you downloaded with Gmail.

Click on the Filters tab, click the Import filters button and browse to find the filters file.

All incoming e-mail will be flagged with the appropriate labels.

These filters will do the following:

Label all Microsoft office documents, spreadsheets and power point presentations
Label most images
Delete all e-mails to yourself
Label all music files
Label most social networking e-mails

Use Gmail as a Productivity Manager

If you are already using Gmail as your default e-mail client, then you should be using it as a productivity manager.

You can download and install GTD Inbox from here.

After the browser restart, login to Gmail and the welcome window will display the following:

We recommend you scroll down on the welcome window and click the “Automatically Add Default Status Labels” button. You can create these labels later, but it makes it simpler if you let the program auto-create.

After it is done, click the “Go to Gmail” button in the right hand corner of the screen.

You now have a new set of labels to work with. These labels allow you to put labels next to the various e-mails you receive.

Now click on the Settings button in the top right hand corner of the screen and select the GTDInbox button.

In this section, you can create different label categories. We recommend you click on the Labels tab under GTDInbox and create some new Label categories for the different types of e-mails you receive.

Insert HTML signatures into Gmail

The one feature that Gmail lacks by default is the ability to add HTML signatures. Most other mainstream webmail clients allow you to do this. By using the Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures Mozilla Firefox add-on you can create and insert your own HTML signature.

Getting the add-on is a little tricky. Click here to go to the add-on page. Do not download Version 1.11.09, you want to download Version 1.11.11. This version is the most current version and is the only one that should be used. Even though it says the add-on is experimental, it is not. Mozilla has a huge backlog of add-ons to go through before they considered it released.

Click on the “Create a new user account” button unless you already have an account. Once you create your account, click here and install the 1.11.11 version. If you can’t get the 1.11.11 version to display, login to the Mozilla Add-ons page first and make sure you click the Automatically login button checkbox. Then close the page and try clicking the above link again.

Once you get the add-on installed, login to Gmail. Click on the Compose Mail button. You will know the add-on is working since you will have extra signature options at the top of screen.

Click on the Options button and you will see the Blank Canvas main screen. Change the signature position to “below quoted text” and put a checkmark in the “Show Reinsert button” checkbox. The below quoted text option puts the quotation at the bottom of the e-mail. The reinsert button will allow you to add your signature if it is deleted somehow. Click on the Save Options button to save the changes.

Now click on the “Create Signature” button. Since we are creating an HTML signature, we are assuming that you know how to use HTML, so insert the HTML code you want to use as a signature. We are going to use a spread Firefox button.

After you type or paste the HTML code, you will see a preview of the signature.

If you like the way the signature looks click on the “Save Signature” button. Gmail will automatically insert your new signature into a new e-mail message. If you do not want to e-mail someone right now, just close the window or navigate to a different webpage. When you log back into Gmail, you will automatically see the signature, but if you don’t for some reason, click on the Reinsert button.

And finally, click the next page for our five favorite Gmail Lab add-ons!

Top Five Gmail Lab Add-ons

For all of these features, you can find them by clicking on the Settings link at the top of your Gmail window and selecting the Labs feature tab.

Undo Send

Ever had that e-mail you sent, but wish you had back? This is where Undo Send comes into play.

When you enable the Undo Send feature, you will have a few seconds to undo the sending of the e-mail. Just click the Undo button presented at the top and the e-mail will stop sending. Be aware that Undo Send will only let you un-send the message for a few seconds.

Canned Responses

As you know, canned responses are responses that you can send automatically.

If you send similar e-mails to multiple people and do not feel like copying and pasting, this is an excellent feature for you.

After the Canned Responses labs feature is on, click on Compose Mail. Click on Canned responses and select new canned response.

Name the canned response, doesn’t matter what you name it, but remember the name so you can use it in the future.

Start typing your canned response. When you are finished, click on Canned responses again and under Save click on the name of the canned speech. When it asks if you want to overwrite, click Ok and it will save your canned response.

Canned responses can also be used when you have to change the name of a person or building, for example. Just change the name of the person before you send the e-mail.

Snakes with Shortcuts

If you like the game Snakes and want it in Gmail, this Labs feature is for you. If you haven’t played the game Snakes, yet want to do something in your spare time, this feature is also for you.

You need to enable Custom keyboard shortcuts and Old Snakey.

After you enable these two Labs features, you should be able to press Shift and the 7 key to launch the game.

Mouse Gestures

Constantly clicking the mouse when you need to go between e-mail messages gets rather tedious. With Mouse Gestures, you can slide the mouse and automatically advance to the next e-mail.

To make this work, you need to enable the Mouse Gestures labs feature. Once it is enabled, just hold down the right click button on the mouse and slide your mouse in the appropriate direction.

Down = Return to Inbox menu
Right = Advance to next e-mail
Left = Return to previous e-mail

Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat

If you hate the tiny keyboards provided by most cell phones, you will love this feature. When you enable this labs feature, you can send a text message to any of your friends using the Gmail chat feature.

To do this, just type in the number into the chat window and click the Send SMS button. Fill in the person’s name and then send the message. The person will get a text message from the text you typed. Be careful on how many times you click enter though, each time you do the person will be charged.

Now that we've showed you some of our favorite features, you should know how to get the most benefit from Gmail account. If we overlooked one of your favorite hidden tricks or Labs add-on, leave us a message in the comments below!

Build the Ultimate USB Thumb Drive Toolbox

Alex Castle — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:00:00 -0600

If you like this story, help other people find it by giving it a digg. Thanks!

What’s a USB key good for? Carrying files from one computer to another? If you think that’s all, then you’re missing out. USB thumb drives can be used in almost all the ways a regular hard drive can, including storing all sorts of useful apps. We think that this presents a great opportunity for savvy PC users to keep their favorite programs at hand, no matter what computer they end up using.

In this article we’re going to show you a number of different loadouts for USB “tools.” With these on hand you’ll be able to do everything from checking your email to recovering data off a damaged hard drive on any computer you find yourself sitting in front of. We'll also show you a couple of cool tricks, like how to run a virtual, encrypted drive from a thumb drive, so gather up some of those spare USB keys you have lying around and read on.

Tool #1: The Portable Office

There’s a big push for portability these days—witness the meteoric rise in netbook sales, for one, as well as the enormous popularity of smartphones like the iPhone—and there’s nothing as portable as a USB key. Now, we’re not going to pretend that a thumb drive can take the place of a dedicated mobile computer, but we will show you how you can load it up with enough cool apps to make any strange computer a digital home away from home. (Or office away from the office, as the case may be).

However, before we start setting up our portable office, there’s something that must be discussed…

Security

Here's the problem: Using an unsecured USB key as a portable office represents a major security risk. After all, if you managed to lose your drive and some unscrupulous type was to find it, he’d have access to all your sensitive data, like your emails and saved passwords. Fortunately, there’s a way to secure our drive against this kind of threat: Encryption.

We’ll use TrueCrypt, an extremely powerful piece of free encryption software, to encrypt the data on our USB drive. TrueCrypt’s encryption is top-notch, meaning that as long as you choose a strong passphrase, your data will be safe even if your key falls into the hands of the world’s greatest hacker-slash-pickpocket. To get yourself secured, just follow these steps:

1. Download TrueCrypt

It can be found here.

2. Install TrueCrypt

Run the executable to begin installation. When you are given the option, choose Extract rather than Install. This is what will allow us to run TrueCrypt on a USB drive. Choose to extract to some location on your thumb drive.

3. Create a Volume

Start up TrueCrypt by running the executable from the directory you extracted to, and click on the Create Volume button. This will allow you to create a Truecrypt volume, an encrypted file which will contain all of your data. Once the TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard pops up, choose Create an encrypted file container and click next.

At the next screen, choose Standard TrueCrypt volume. You could pick Hidden TrueCrypt volume, which allows you to create a sort of decoy encrypted drive in case someone tortures you for your password or something, but since we’re more worried about petty thieves than the KGB, we should be alright with a normal volume.

On the screen marked “Volume Location,” click Select File… You’re then prompted to pick a file name and location for your volume. If you’re feeling especially sneaky you can disguise the file as something else, but (again) the encryption will almost certainly be enough security, so we just called our file “Portable Office.”

You’ll then be treated to a screen of encryption options. You don’t need to understand this stuff, the default settings will work just fine. After that, you get to select the volume size. This must be large enough to accommodate all the apps we’re going to put on this disk. We recommend making it at least one or two gigabytes.

Finally, you’ll be given the opportunity to enter your password. Follow the usual guidelines for strong passwords, of course (make it long, don’t use names or birthdays, include a mix of letters of both cases, numbers and symbols) though exactly how long you make your password is up to you, based on how sensitive the data you plan to store on the drive is. Once you’ve chosen your password, click next, wiggle your mouse in the window for a little while (for security and a good time) then click Format.

4. Mount the Volume

Now all you have to do is wait for the encryption to complete, then mount the encrypted drive. To do that, go back to the main TrueCrypt screen and click Select File… and choose the volume you just created. If you uncheck Never save history it will allow you to skip having to load the volume every time you want to access your USB key. Next, click on the letter you want to assign to the virtual drive you’re about to mount and click Mount.

If you go back to your My Computer screen, you’ll now see a new drive. This is our virtual, encrypted drive. We can use it exactly like a normal drive, and when we’re done we just unmount it (or exit TrueCrypt) and anything in that drive is completely inaccessible to anyone until we mount it again by inputting the passphrase. Now that’s security.

Setting Up Your Portable Office

Installing the PortableApps Platform

Now it’s time to download the PortableApps platform. At the PortableApps download page, there are three options, which allow you to download just the platform, the platform and basic apps, or the platform, the basic apps, and OpenOffice.org Portable. You’re free to pick up whichever suite you want, though in the following section we’re going to showcase a bunch of the apps we like best, complete with download links, so you’re also safe just picking up the platform and then individually installing whichever apps you think you’ll use.

Once you've picked your package and finished downloading, simply run the PortableApps executable and choose to install it on the root of your virtual drive.

Installing Additional Apps

There are two ways to get PortableApps to play nicely with new applications. The first, which only works on officially supported Apps, is to download the .paf.exe application file. Then run PortableApps, click on Options -> Add a New App -> Install and then select the file you just downloaded. PortableApps will automatically install the program.

Even if the app you want to use isn’t on the official list, you can still get PortableApps to recognize it. All you have to do is install the application to a folder on the virtual drive at the same hierarchical level as the PortablAppsMenu folder. If you did a standard install, the path to your new app should look like this:

[virtual drive letter]:\ PortableApps\[New App Name]\[New App].exe

Once the app is in the right place, click Options -> Refresh Apps Icons in PortableApps and it should find your new program.

The Applications

When choosing apps for our portable office USB key, we should keep in mind the two main advantages that the portable office is meant to provide. The first advantage is that it allows us to make sure that we always have the apps we want on hand, even if we’re on a strange computer. Based on this, we want to include any apps that we find useful that might not be on any given machine.

The second advantage to a portable office USB key is that it allows us to keep all our settings intact, no matter what computer we use. Because of this, it’s wise to include apps like Portable Firefox. Even though almost any computer you use will have a web browser, bringing your own version of Firefox with you means that you can always have access to things like your bookmarks, plugins and saved passwords.

That said, which apps you should include on your thumb drive is a matter of personal preference. We’ll include a list of some that we consider essential and leave the rest up to you.

Read on to find out what apps we recommend!

OpenOffice.org Portable

If you’re much of computer user at all, you’ve surely heard of OpenOffice.org, the open source alternative to Microsoft’s Office suite. It may lack a little bit of the polish of the MS suite, but at zero dollars it’s a hell of a deal, and it’s preconfigured as a Portable App. OpenOffice.org is included in the full PortableApps package, or you can download it here if you got one of the smaller packages.

Mobile Mozilla

Here we’re grouping up the three portable offerings from Mozilla: Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird. Firefox is, of course, the browser you know and love. As we discussed earlier, the main advantage to having Firefox on your drive is that you have options to all your personal settings anywhere you go. Thunderbird and Sunbird combined give you Outlook-style email and schedule management. If you’re a webmail user, you can go ahead and leave these two off the drive.

Pidgin

Anyone who does much instant messaging knows that being on a computer with no IM client feels like being cut off from your lifeline. Fortunately, Pidgin—the popular multi-service messaging client—is available in portable form. At the PortableApps Pidgin page (where you can download the .paf.exe) there are also links to encryption plugins, allowing you to keep your correspondence secure, no matter where you are.

uTorrent

Torrents are great; they’re fast, stable and plentiful. The only problem? You have to have a BitTorrent client to download them, and most non-power users don’t. But that’s not really a problem when you can bring your own client with you, and although it doesn’t come preconfigured as a Portable App, our favorite client uTorrent works just fine installed on a thumb drive.

And speaking of torrents, it's time for our second USB tool: the media stick. Read on to find out more about how to play any media anywhere.

Tool #2: The Media Tool

If you’re like us, one of the most indispensible uses of your computer is as a media HQ. We use ours to view, edit and organize pictures, videos, and audio. Unfortunately, not every computer has the set of sophisticated media-manipulation apps that ours has, which means that when we’re away from our home machine we’re sometimes left high and dry. There are solutions to this, of course—we could download and install what we need, as we need it, but this requires an internet connections and patience, and we’re not guaranteed to have either of those things.

So, instead let’s discuss how we can put together another USB tool for our toolbox—this time a media tool, which will allow us to fulfill our usual media needs on any system. Because of the size restraints of a USB thumb drive we can hardly schlep around every single media program we use, so we’ll have to make some smart picks to maximize our functionality while minimizing our storage requirements.

To organize our apps, we’ll use the PortableApps.com platform again. Of course, we're only grouping these seperately for the sake of having specific tools with specific purposes, there's abolutely nothing keeping you from installing these apps on the same USB thumb drive as the last section.

Now, we’ll start filling out the drive with apps.

VLC

Normally we prefer the deliciously minimalistic Media Player Classic over VLC, but for our purposes here VLC’s ability to open nearly any file without having to install any codecs makes it a better fit. Beyond that, there’s not much to say about VLC. If you want to play a video or audio file in just about any format, VLC’s got you covered. That means that if you’ve got a (legitimately, of course) downloaded HD H.264 mkv file you want to show your buddy, you can just pop it onto one of your myriad thumb drives and take it to his house, without having to worry that his computer doesn’t have the necessary software to open it.

There’s a PortableApps version of VLC available here.

Picasa

Google’s Picasa is our weapon of choice when it comes to organizing, viewing and touching up photos. By including it on our thumb drive media tool, we’re insuring that it’ll be a snap to retrieve family photos off of mom’s old machine.

There’s no PortableApps version of Picasa. Instead, download the installer from the Picasa website and install it following the instructions for adding new apps.

GIMP

Speaking of pictures, we want some way to edit photos and images for our less technologically-forward friends and relatives. Sure, Photoshop’s nice, but it’s expensive and at about 300MB is an absolute heifer when compared to GIMP’s svelte profile.

GIMP is available as a PortableApp right here.

Next, we'll put together a tool to keep PCs in top condition.

Tool #3: System Tuner

A lot of times, being the computer nerd of the family means being the de facto computer technician. When it comes to time to play repairman, there are a couple of simple apps that can help to clear up the vast majority of normal users’ computer problems. By combining these apps onto one convenient USB thumb drive, you can fix your loved ones' maltreated computers without even breaking a sweat (or connecting to the internet).

Spybot - Search & Destroy

Spybot - Search & Destroy is one of the best malware-removal tools available right now. The program has an excellent set of features, is upgraded very frequently, and, of course, is totally free. If someone you know has a computer that’s gotten slow, The first (and sometimes only) step in your repair efforts should be to install Spybot on their system –to both clear off existing malware and help steer them clear of it in the future. With programs like this, it's best just to keep the installer on the USB thumb drive, rather than actually installing to it.

Revo Uninstaller

You’d be amazed at the crap some people will install on their machine. If you’re trying to clear up space or get someone’s machine to run faster, the Revo Uninstaller does a better job and is easier to use than the traditional Windows Add/Remove Software tool. One of its handiest features is a so-called “Hunter Mode,” which hides Revo Uninstaller and makes it so that a contextual opens for over any program window you click on, giving you the option to uninstall or stop the program from running at startup. In short, this allows you to uninstall applications without having to know a single thing about them.

DiskCheckup

PassMark DiskCheckup is a hard disk diagnostics application. Once installed, it monitors the SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology) data reported by your hard disks. It can show you statistics about the drive and tell you what they mean in terms of overall disk help. Also, DiskCheckup can be set to automatically email you if any of the SMART attributes fall below a certain threshold.

Defraggler

Although the built-in disk defragmenters in Windows XP and Vista do a fine job of getting your hard drives in order (as discussed), they’re a bit bare-bones. With Defraggler, a free program from Piriform, you get a powerful defragmenter, as well as a nicely informative GUI, which shows you a graphical representation of your drive’s contents. Plus, Defraggler allows you to defrag individual files, a feature lacking in many similar products. Also, like the other Piriform apps included in our toolkit, Defraggler a single, compact executable, which means you can just drop it onto your thumb drive and run it from anywhere, without any installation.

TweakUI

TweakUI is a PowerToy (read: app) from Microsoft which allows you to customize a whole host of settings in Windows XP that would otherwise require changes to the system registry. You won’t be making any really dramatic changes with TweakUI, but there are a lot of little things (several of which are discussed in this feature) that you can do with the programs to help get a system running just like you want it to.

Glary Utilities

Glary Utilities is an all-in-one tweaking and optimization tool package. Many of its functions (such as its disk cleaner and defragmenter) are already covered by other apps on this list which we like a little better, but it’s worth installing Glary Utilities for the many other handy utilities that it comes with. For instance, it can permanently delete files, find duplicates files, manage shell extensions and more. For a full list of features, check out the Gary’s Utilities website, where you can also download the package.

ZoneAlarm

ZoneAlarm is the best-known and best-performing free software firewall currently available. Whatever your personal feelings about the necessity of firewalls for secure web-surfing are, it’s something that any computer novice should have on their system. By installing both Zone Alarm and Spybot S&D, you’ll ensure that even your dopiest friend won’t break his computer again as soon as you leave.

We haven't even adressed one of the scarist computer problems: Hard drive failure. Read on to check out our Hard Drive Repair Kit tool, which will include apps to diagnose, maintain and repair hard drives.

Tool #4: Hard Drive Repair Kit

We've already covered some minor hard drive-related tasks (such as defragging) on the system tuner tool, but we think there's enough high-quality hard disk apps to warrant grouping them into their own tool. On this stick, we’ll install several programs for analyzing and performing maintenance on your disks, as well as a sophisticated, bootable data recovery suite.

Of course, when it comes to hard drive troubleshooting, the be all and end all of advice is this: Backup! If you back your files up frequently and thoroughly, you’ve got nothing to fear from hard drive failure. However, not everyone is as clever as you are, so having this tool around might just make you a hero in the eyes of one of your less data-prudent friends.

This tool is a little unique in that it includes a bootable, Unix-based operating system called Knoppix, which is especially good for data recovery. To do this, we’ll be installing the Syslinux boot loader on the drive, so make sure you have that downloaded as well.

There’s an in-depth guide to this process available here, as part of our guide to installing Ubuntu on a netbook. If you have trouble following the brief instructions we’ll provide here, reference that guide for a more thorough description.

Making a Bootable Thumb Drive

1) Format your thumb drive

No, it’s not always necessary, but it’s quick and it might help you avoid later problems. Right click your USB drive in the My Computer window, select the FAT32 file structure if it’s not already selected, and hit Format.

2) Install Syslinux on the drive

First, open the Syslinux archive you downloaded and extract the contents to a file on your desktop. Then, open a command prompt and navigate to the win32 folder inside the directory containing the files you just extracted. Then enter this command: syslinux –ma E: substituting the drive letter of your thumb drive, if it’s not E:

3) Copy the Knoppix files over

Using a program like 7-Zip, open the Knoppix ISO you downloaded. Copy all files it contains over to the root of the USB thumb drive. Next, copy the contents of the folder called Isolinux to the root of the thumb drive as well. Finally, rename the files isolinux.bin and isolinux.cfg to syslinux.bin and syslinux.cfg, respectively.

Congratulations, your thumb drive is now bootable. But before we get into how to use Knoppix, we’ll load up a couple of additional Windows apps onto the thumb drive to make our hard drive tool more versatile.

Create a folder on the USB drive called Apps. This will contain the following software:

Disk Space

CCleaner

The first step to cleaning up an unruly hard drive is to clear off the useless data that accumulates like dust on a heatsink. CCleaner is a free app that goes through and automatically clears out all sorts of temp and cache files on your computer. It’ll also clean up your registry, and includes an uninstaller (though we’re going to put a better one on the drive) and a tool for choosing which programs launch on startup.

WinDirStat

WinDirStat, short for Windows Directory Statistics is a hard drive space analysis tool. It provides you with a graphical breakdown of how the space on a hard drive is being used, and allows you to delete up files you don’t want. WinDirStat (or other, similar visualizers) is an excellent tool for identifying space-hogging programs. Then if you can live without these programs, it’s time for…

Recovery

Recuva

Recuva is a compact, simple undelete tool. It’s small, and doesn’t require installation, so we can just drop the executable on our thumb drive and run it from there. When run, it can scan your system for all deleted files, or only those which match certain search terms.

We should note that recovery tools like these are far from guaranteed to find your deleted files, so don’t go promising your friend that you’ll be able to get back anything they’ve ever deleted. Still, it’s worth a shot.

PC Inspector File Recovery

Now it’s time for the big guns. If one of the drives on your system goes down, but your Windows drive is intact you can use File Recovery to attempt to salvage the data. File Recovery must be installed on a disk other than the target disk, and runs in windows. It provides a simple to use but powerful GUI for recovering damaged or deleted data.

Knoppix

What about the worst-case scenario, though? What if the drive containing Windows goes down and you can’t get past the boot screen? That’s where Knoppix comes in. Using your new USB tool, you can boot directly to Knoppix, a Unix distro that we’ll use for data recovery. This is generally accomplished by pressing f12 as your system boots and selecting the USB drive, but this varies by BIOS.

Once you’re in Knoppix, minimize any windows that opened automatically and check out the desktop. You should see icons representing all the partitions in your system. Click on the icons to explore them one at a time until you figure out which one represents your Windows partition. Hopefully, Knoppix will be able to explore and retrieve data from your corrupted drive. If it cannot, your best bet is to send it to a data recovery specialist.

Kepp reading, because we've got one more tool for you to try out!

Tool #5: Windows Installer

We’ve already showed you how to install an OS on a USB key, but what about installing one from a USB key. Fortunately, it’s actually a relatively simple matter to transfer the Vista installation disc onto a thumb drive. Doing this poses a number of advantages: First and foremost, the faster USB 2.0 transfer speeds allow for a noticeably faster Windows install. Also, having a Windows installation USB key means easy installation on the growing population of optical drive-less PCs like netbooks. Finally, USB drives are less fragile and more portable than CDs, which is not a huge deal for OS installation, but it’s still nice to help someone set up a new computer and be able to bring all your tools with you in one pocket.

Using Vista, the process is much simpler than the Knoppix install we performed for the hard drive repair key. First, we’ll format the USB drive. This will require a series of command line commands, but we’ll walk you through them step by step. (Also note that these steps are the same as those used to install the Windows 7 beta from a USB drive, as in Norm’s guide right here.)

Ready the Thumb Drive

Enter the bolded commands, in this order:

List disk

This will show you a list of disks connected to the PC. Determine which disk is the thumb drive you want to install from, based on its size. Remember its disk number.

Select Disk # (Use the number from the previous step)

Clean

Create Partition Primary

Select Partition 1

Active

Format FS=NTFS

Assign (Write down the letter assigned to the key)

Exit

Make the Drive Bootable

Next, we’ll need to make the USB key a bootable device. To do this, we’ll use code contained in the Windows Vista install CD. Insert the CD and explore it, navigating to the boot directory. Hold shift and right-click in this directory, selecting Open Command Window Here from the menu that pops up.

In the command window, enter the following:

Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (But replace the “L:” with the letter assigned to your USB key.)

This will put code on the USB drive needed to boot from it. Note that bootsect will NOT work if you attempt to run it off of the Vista 64 bit install CD on a 32 bit Vista system or vice versa.

Copy Over the Install Files

All that’s left to do is to copy over the install files from the Vista install CD. Simply drag all the files from the root of the Vista CD into the root of the USB drive. And that’s it. All that’s left to do is boot from the USB drive. Assuming you’re on a computer that’s capable of booting from a USB drive, all you have to do is get to the boot menu (usually achieved by pressing f12 or f2 during startup), and select the USB key.

50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:00:00 -0600

Back in our September 2008 issue, we published a list of 9 Skills Every Nerd Needs – a lighthearted examination of the essential abilities Maximum PC readers should have in their geek arsenal. We still stand by that list, but we were somewhat one-upped last month when we saw that Gizmodo had since run its own list of 50 key geek skills. Their list was very respectable, but we thought that we could do better by not only expanding and refining our original story, but actually teaching you these skills. The highest echelon of geeks will be able to do everything in this list, and this is by no means a full categorization of the complete geek skillset – only what we consider to be the most indispensable abilities. Have anything to add to our list? Post it in the comments!

Name These Connectors!

Finding hidden hardware gems in bins of archaic cards at computer shows and swap meets is an ever-so-crucial nerd skill. Frequently the only way to discern the difference is to do an on-the-spot ID of the edge connector. True nerds should be able to identify even the most esoteric connector in their sleep (if they sleep with their eyes open, that is). Can you separate the crap from the kick ass? No cheating!

A. PCI-Express connector
B. DDR memory
C. Dual-channel RIMM

Run All Your Essential Apps on a USB Stick

Any real nerd is almost sure to have a USB thumbdrive in his pocket at all times. After all, USB flash storage is pretty much the best way to keep data conveniently at hand. What the average nerd might not know, however, is that it’s possible to install all sorts of apps on a thumb drive, meaning that you can use your USB stick as a mobile platform for your browser, email and instant message client, office suite and more. That means you can access these programs, settings intact, from any computer with a spare USB slot.

It’s all made possible by PortableApps.com, an open source platform for portable software. To get started with PortableApps, go to this page and download whichever version of the portable suite suits your needs. Then run the installer, and choose to install to the root of your USB drive. In the future, if you want to add additional portable applications just download the app, then select “add a new app” from PortableApps’ options menu and browse to the .paf.exe file you downloaded.

Right now, there are portable versions of heavyweights like Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice, as well as a whole ton of other, awesome programs.

Straighten the Pins on an Older CPU

There are two quick ways to realign bent pins on older CPUs.

The first, quickest way is to take a credit card and run it through the rows of pins in each direction, which will realign lightly-bent pins.

If a pin is bent too far for the credit card trick, use the barrel of a mechanical pencil to sheath the pin and gently bend it back up straight.

Know the 13 Basic HTML Tags

Dreamweaver is for sissies; real geeks prove their skills by going old school and coding web pages by hand in notepad. But even if you can't keep up with the newest iterations of hypertext markup language, you should still be able to at least edit website code to make minor adjustments. So in case you’ve forgotten, here are the 13 most basic HTML tags:

<h1> to <h6> -- Heading styles from large to small
<p> -- Start a new paragraph
<br> or <br /> -- Create a single line break
<! – Your Comment Here -- > -- Make a hidden comment
<hr> -- Mark the page with a horizontal rule line
<b> -- Bold text
<em> -- Emphasize text
<strong> -- Strong emphasis
<i> -- Italicize text
<u> -- Underline text
  -- Insert a non-breaking space
<a href=”URL”> -- Anchor a link
<img src= “URL” alt=”description”> -- Insert an image

Get Through to Executive Customer Service

One of the most frustrating experiences in a nerd’s life is when a part you’ve bought turns out to be a dud. When something breaks, you have to hit up the customer service line, which can often be an excruciating process involving an endless circle of robotic menus, long hold times, and patronizing, outsourced technicians (yes, I am sure it’s plugged in, thank you for asking). However, there’s a couple of ways to make the process a little easier.

For one, if you’re stuck dealing with a robot phone menu, there’s usually a way to get through directly to a human operator. Generally, ignoring the prompts and repeatedly mashing the 0, 9, * or # keys will eventually confuse the system enough that it’ll send you to an operator. If you have a specific company that’s giving you trouble, go to www.gethuman.com, where there’s an enormous list of customer service numbers, and how to get through to a human at each one.

Second, if you’re not having any luck with the “tier 1” tech support and they won’t elevate you when you ask, consider going over their heads yourself. Search for the phone number of the offending company’s corporate office (the Consumerist has a whole bunch available, or you can search for their corporate info on Yahoo! Finance, if they’re publically traded) and give them a call.

Beat Quake in Under an Hour

The speedrun seems to be a lost art. Sure, new games like Mirror’s Edge encourage that you replay its levels in a time trial mode to compete against other players in the world, but these sanctioned game modes don’t carry the credibility or audacity of classic Quake speed runners. We’re still amazed every time we watch a video of someone beating all of Quake in less than 15 minutes. It’s not just the brevity of the run that impresses us; it’s how elegant and gracefully these players navigate through levels, capitalizing on every perfectly aimed rocket jump and timed bunny hop to shave seconds off of their run time. Watch and learn from these masters.

Build a Hackintosh

Admit it—you’ve cast some sidelong glances at OS X, wondering to yourself if Apple’s shiny OS really lives up to the hype. Well we’re here to tell you that it’s OK to be curious.

Even if your pro-PC leanings have prohibited you from buying a Mac, they don’t have to keep you from trying out OS X. The kind folks over at LifeHacker have posted a how-to about making a Hackintosh—a system custom-built from non-Apple components running OS X. So go ahead; let yourself experiment. Who knows, you might just like it.

Watch TV Shows on the Internet (Legally!)

For quite a while, watching streaming TV on the internet meant suffering through tiny, poorly encoded video on YouTube, 10 minutes at a time, hoping whatever you were watching didn’t get removed before you were done. But those times are behind us now, with a host of corporate-sponsored sites offering legal, ad-supported shows and movies in (comparatively) luxurious resolution.

So what are the options available? Hulu’s still pretty much the best site out there, offering a huge array of full-length shows from NBC, FOX, Comedy Central, FX and others. Veoh.com hosts ABC’s programs, as well as others, and YouTube has recently reached an agreement with CBS to host their shows. One of our favorite video services is southparkstudios.com, which hosts every potty-mouthed episode of South Park for viewing on demand.

Streaming movies are just now becoming available from several sources. Hulu has a modest selection of free flicks, NetFlix offers streaming movies to subscribers, and Amazon, Blockbuster.com and others allows you to stream videos for a per-movie fee.

Get Around the Content Filter on Public Computers

Are the content restrictions on public computers cramping your style. Don’t worry about it; there’s two easy ways to bypass those filters completely.

If you’re just doing some normal web browsing, and aren’t planning to send any passwords or sensitive information, you can try using a simple web proxy. Proxy.org maintains a list of free anonymous proxies. If you’re worried about privacy, using Tor is a more secure option. If you install Tor on a copy of the (aforementioned) portable edition of Firefox, and keep it with you on a USB drive, you can surf the web anonymously from any computer that allows you to run your own software.

Recite pi to 23 Decimal Places

3.14 may have been enough accuracy for 10th grade geometry, but it’s just not going to win you any respect from the other nerds. We consider 23 places the bare minimum for pi memorization.

If you’re having trouble dealing with all that, try “chunking” your memory. That is to say, instead of simply trying to remember each number in sequence (a task that humans tend not to be very good at) try to remember the numbers in groups or chunks that have more significance for you. If that’s not doing it for you, consider piems—stories and poems structured around digits of pi.

For the record, pi is: 3.141592653589793238462643...

Replace the Controller Board on a Hard Drive

Hard drive failure is more common than you think, but the culprit isn’t always a faulty platter. If your hard disk goes dead and you didn’t hear any screeching death rattles, one thing you could always try is replacing the drive’s controller board. It’s a long shot, but an essential skill nonetheless that occasionally works.

Replacing a hard drive’s controller circuit is as simple as unscrewing the PCB board from the bottom of the drive and detaching the ribbon connector. Make sure you can do this without exposing any of the drive’s internals. You also have to make sure that the new board comes from EXACTLY the same hard drive model as your defective unit – the make, model, and even firmware have to match. Mount the new board in with the same screws and connect the ribbon cable. If you did everything right and the problem was indeed the controller board, you should be able to retrieve your data.

Benchmark Your Computer

There are a lot of ways to increase the performance of your PC. But what fun is it unless you can actually see how much faster your machine runs. You might be able to get a vague idea of how much it’s improved by observing its performance while playing games, but unless you thoroughly benchmark your computer you’ll never know for sure. Professional-grade benchmarking software like we use for our reviews here at Maximum PC runs pretty pricey, but it’s not impossible to benchmark your system using entirely free software.

In fact, we’ve posted a guide telling you how to do exactly that.

Decorate Your Room Using Only Printer Paper

Some people might think that decorating a room requires a trip to Crate and Barrel and an open line of credit, but if you’re a real nerd you know better. You know that you can get all your decorating done with nothing more than a printer and some paper.

To cover your walls, you don’t need fancy stuff like “artwork,” or even real posters, all you need is the Rasterbator. Find a reasonably high-res image, and the Rasterbator will blow it up and split it into single-page-sized chunks for you to tape together. However, if you want your poster to be one contiguous image, be prepared to spend some time with a ruler and razorblade trimming off the white borders.

If your shelves are feeling a little barren, it might be time to fill them up with a little papercraft. Assuming you’ve been on the internet over the last couple years, you’re probably aware of the general idea behind papercraft—you print out a template and fold it, origami-style, into a little paper model. What you might not have known is that it’s easy to create your own papercraft templates. So get to it!

Securely Erase Your Data So it Can't be Recovered

When you format your disk, most of the data it contains is not actually deleted. Rather, the disk space that it occupies is made inaccessible and overwriteable by the file system. Until it is actually overwritten, the data on the formatted disk is still recoverable by anyone with the right tools. If you want to more thoroughly destroy your data (without destroying your hard disk) you’ll want to perform a “zero fill,” an operation which overwrites a pattern of 0s over all the bits in the hard disk.

Most hard disk manufacturers offer some sort of drivers on their website which will allow you to zero fill your drive. These drivers are the most reliable option, but if you can’t find them, there’s also free apps such as killdisk, which should do the job on any hard disk.

There is some theoretical chance that magnetic remanence could allow someone to recover data from a zeroed drive, but it’s such longshot that you’re better off not wasting money on software that promises to overwrite your drive some ridiculous number of times.

Get into a Windows Computer if you Forgot Your Password

So, you managed to lose the password to your Windows account. How screwed are you? If you’re a true nerd, not very. There are a couple of things you can do to try and recover your password.

First, if you haven’t changed the default settings on your Windows install (which you should have) you may be able to log into an unprotected administrator account by starting the PC up in safe mode. To do this, press f8 as the computer boots up. If you can get into the system in this mode, you can reset other user’s passwords by clicking the “User Accounts” icon in the control panel.

If that doesn’t work, your best bet it to attempt to crack the password using a cracker like ophcrack loaded onto a bootable CD, floppy or USB drive.

Hide Porn from Your Significant Other

Want to keep your forays into the internet’s seedier spots unnoticed by your spouse? No problem. For most users, enabling a simple feature like FireFox or Safari’s “private browsing” feature will do the trick. These features make it so that your browser temporarily stops storing any information about your activities on the web, meaning that your wife won’t get any nasty surprises the next day when Google autocompletes her search to something obscene. If you absolutely must store files to your computer that you don’t want anyone else to know about, use a thumb drive (they’re dirt cheap these days) and hide it in your sock drawer or something.

However, if you’re dating an FBI agent, or are just absurdly paranoid, there are more secure solutions. You could just encrypt all the illicit data, but then you might have to face questions like “Honey, why is there a password-protect .rar file sitting on the desktop?”

To get around this, hide your data steganographically. That is to say hide it inside another file. You might have seen this technique used on the internet (say, as part of an ARG) to hide a picture inside of an audio clip, for instance, but it can also be used to hide larger amounts of data. Using the open source app TrueCrypt, you can create an encrypted disk of any size inside of an inconspicuous-looking file.

Explain What E=MC^2 Means to a Liberal Arts Major

Sure, you know what it means. The mass-energy equivalence is Einstein’s most famous revelation and the key to his theory of special relativity. But that’s all mumbo jumbo to a Liberal Arts major, who’d rather sing sonnets than study science. Hence the challenge of explaining this famous equation in layman’s terms. Defining the variables (E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum) may be easy enough, but getting someone to wrap their heads around the concept of how those relate will take lots of patience and even some creativity. Our tip: speak in their language (poetry or song), and do it over a glass of merlot. Or two.

Abstain from Buying Extended Warranties

Yeah, it sucks when one of your favorite doodads breaks down just one week after the manufacturer’s warranty expires, but in the long run you’re doing yourself and your wallet a disservice if you shell out for the extended warranties.

Instead, read user reviews and consumer reports about electronics before you make a purchase, and make sure you buy brands with a good reputation for reliability. Also, compare the manufacturer’s warranties offered by the devices’ makers; some companies offer much longer coverage than others.

Also, most major credit cards offer extended warranty protection. This means that if you buy something that comes with a manufacturer’s warranty, and you pay for it with your credit card, the credit card company will automatically provide some amount of warranty coverage after the manufacturer’s warranty expires. Visa cards, for instance, will match the term of the original warranty in extended coverage, up to an additional year.

Use Photoshop or GIMP to Imperceptibly Doctor a Photo

No, adding humorously misspelled text to a picture of a cat doesn’t count.

They used to say that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Now, thanks to the power and ubiquity of Photoshop (or GIMP, for the open source fans and the extra-scrupulous), everyone knows that a photo isn’t worth anything but lies and deception. They also used to say “fight fire with fire,” and that’s still good advice. Learn to use Photoshop yourself and you’ll be better equipped to see through other people’s photo trickery.

Use a DSLR in Full Manual Mode

Modern digital cameras are pretty user-friendly. You just turn them on—maybe adjust a setting or two, depending on the type of photo you’ll be shooting—then just point and click. However, if you ever want to take photos at more than an Ashton Kutcher level, you’re going to have to learn to use an SLR.

And sure, modern DSLRs can do most of the focusing and aperture adjustments for you, but if you really want to shoot like a pro you’ll need to be able to operate it in full manual. It’s not just for bragging rights, either; manually operating your DSLR will result in a better understanding of the operation and physical underpinnings of your camera, and will ultimately make you a better photographer.

Mooch Your Neighbor's Wi-Fi

Even without getting into any real hardcore hacking, there are a couple of things you can do to snag some connectivity off of nearby wireless networks. First, check the list of in-range routers for those using the factory-default router name, such as “linksys” or “belkin,” as these are the most likely to be unencrypted or poorly protected. If they have are encrypted, try common default passwords like “admin,” “password,” or the name of the router. If that doesn’t work, use this enormous list of router-specific defaults to find some others to try.

Protect your Wi-Fi

There are just a few things you need to do to keep your brand new wireless router secure. All of these changes can be made from the router’s setting page, which you get to by entering its IP address into a browser.

1.    Change the router’s name. Using the default name is an invitation to hackers.
2.    Change the admin password. As mentioned in the section above, the default admin passwords for every router are easily available to every hacker with two brain cells to rub together.
3.    Activate the router’s encryption. Use WPA encryption rather than WEP, as long as all machines on the network can use it, since it’s much more secure. Obviously, pick a strong passphrase.

Create an Animated Spray in Valve Games

Expressing your individuality online can be difficult, especially if you’re a gamer. While running and gunning your way through games like Counter-Strike: Source or Team Fortress 2 it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. But leaving your mark on the world is easier than you might think. Animated sprays are a great way for you to tell your enemy that, not only have they been pwned, but that you're the one responsible.

Custom animated sprays were limited to the most elite players in the days of Counter-Strike 1.6, but now that Source is here that’s all changed. So prepare yourself for a quick and easy way to make your own spray and let the lolcats run wild!

Set up a RAID

What kind of nerd would be satisfied with a meager one hard drive acting alone? With prices on enormous drives hitting comically low levels, now’s a perfect time to set up a big ol’ RAID. If, somehow, you’re not already familiar with the different types of arrays and their relative strengths, check out our article here. If you already have a RAID and want to build it into an inexpensive NAS, we’ve got you covered there, too.

Calculate a Pitcher’s Earned Run Average

If you thought that nerds and sports don’t mix, you’re dead wrong. As long as a sport has more statistics than you can shake a spreadsheet at, we’re all over it. A pitcher’s ERA, for instance, is nine times the number of earned runs he allows in a season, divided by the number of innings he’s pitched in that season.

Run Two Operating Systems

Dual-booting two versions of Windows or running Linux on a separate partition can be a life-saver when running into compatibility issues with Vista. Plus, power users never want to be confined to one computing environment when they can take advantage of multiple operating systems. It’s not difficult to install a second OS on a second hard drive or empty partition – you just boot from an installation disc and choose the appropriate storage device. But how about getting Linux to install without formatting or repartitioning your hard drive? Our guide explains how you can try out all the features of the Ubuntu Linux distribution without screwing up your existing data.

Install a Hard Drive in a Laptop

Some people get nervous about opening up their laptops. After all, everything in there is so small and delicate-looking. But a real nerd knows that laptop hard drives are just about as easy to replace as desktop disks, and isn’t afraid to dig into his notebook’s innards.

Remove a hard drive from a notbook generally only involves unscrewing the bottom panel of the laptop, unplugging the hard disk, then unscrewing the drive’s bracket and removing it from the computer. Then, remove a couple of screws to slide the actual drive out of the bracket. Reverse the procedure to install the new drive.

Pull Off an Elaborate Prank

It takes a lot of smarts to pull off a truly exceptional prank, so it makes sense that most of the all-time great pranks have been pulled off by the nerds at super-brainy institutions like MIT. Of course, you don’t have to be able to come up with pranks as involved as Caltech’s, but you should keep a trick or two in your repertoire. After all, you never know when the next great prank war is going to break out.

Rocket Jump Without Using a Macro

1.   Run forward.
2.   Quickly aim down.
3.   Press fire and jump at the same time.
4.   Touch the sky!

That’s it. Rocket jumping, the art of propelling yourself high in the air with the help of explosives, is actually easier than it looks. Whether you want to launch yourself to the roof above a control point or sail across a wide ditch, the only thing you need to remember is that you have to fire your rocket at the exact moment you jump. The most common problem newbies have with rocket jumping is launching the rocket too late, which doesn’t get you as high up. Also keep in mind that momentum matters, so if you want to fly forward, you have to be running in that direction as you rocket jump. Expert players will also be able master the Rocket Crouch Jump, which gets you also twice as high (and far) if you press the crouch key immediately after you jump and fire. It’s a little tricky, but the payoff is worth it.

This age-old tactic doesn’t come without a price. In Team Fortress 2, for example, a perfectly executed rocket jump takes away 51 health points. In addition to splash damage from your rocket, you also lose health from falling after a skyscraping jump (another 25 health in TF2). Avoid this extra penalty by landing on a level above your starting position.

Wire Your Home with Ethernet Cable

The future may be wireless, but in the present it’s still very handy to have your house wired with Ethernet cable. Unfortunately, if carpentry isn’t really your strong suit, the job of running thousands of feet of cable through your walls, floors and ceilings might seem a little bit daunting. But take heart in the fact that Maximum PC EIC Will Smith didn’t get scare d when faced with the same challenge, and everything worked out fine.

Know the 6 Most Important Linux Commands

Want to use Linux? While it’s not strictly necessary anymore, knowing these TK Linux commands will help you in your quest to attain ultimate nerdiness.

* cd – used to navigate to different directories on your system, cd .. takes up up one directory, while cd / takes you to the root of the drive, and cd with no arguments takes you to your home directory
* ls – like dir on DOS, ls lists the contents of the directory you’re currently in
* cp – used to copy files to a new location on your hard drive cp /home/wsmith/test.txt /home/bjones/text.txt
* mv – used to copy a file to a new destination, then demolish the old one. Uses the same syntax as cp
* mkdir – makes a new directory at your current location
* rm – deletes the files specified. With the -r option, it also deletes subdirectories.

Rip Your CDs to FLAC

Everyone knows how to rip a CD to MP3 using iTunes, but if that’s the way you convert your tunes to a portable-friendly format, you’re doing your ears a disservice. While MP3 and other lossy formats sound OK on tinny earbuds and portable players, hook them up to a true audiophile rig, you’ll be disappointed. Ripping your CDs losslessly gives you a bit-for-bit identical audio file at a fraction of the size of an uncompressed CD. Of course, if you still insist on ripping to MP3, you can use EAC and LAME to do that too.

Stream Your Movies, Music, and Photos to Any TV in Your House

You’ve taken the time to rip and transcode hundreds of DVDs for playback on your iPhone, PSP, or other digital media player. You also have a current-gen gaming console—an Xbox 360 or PS3—hooked up to a giant TV in your living room. Right now, you have everything you need to stream your high-quality DVD rips from your computer into your living room using TVersity and our handy how-to guide.

Install and Configure a Virtual Machine

Using virtual machine software you can install multiple OSes on one machine and switch between them, without rebooting! You can use VMs to do everything from run servers to setup a sandbox for testing potentially infected files and applications. Getting started is as easy as downloading virtual machine software, installing it and creating your first machine, then installing Windows, Linux, BSD, or pretty much any other OS on it. Want to move your VM to another machine? That’s easy too, just copy the file that contains your VM to your other machine, install the virtual machine software, and you’re ready to go.

Run Multiple Monitors Like a Pro

There’s no better way to assert your geek ascendancy than to load your desk to the buckling point with multiple monitors. But any old layman can plug an extra monitor into the back of his box and extend his desktop onto it in the display options menu, a poweruser knows that to unlock the full potential of his many displays, he needs a software solution like Ultramon. If you’re unsure about shelling out the 40 bucks for Ultramon, check out our guide on the app and its alternatives.

If you want to take multiple displays to the next level, consider using multiple computers, connected with a virtual KVM switch like Synergy. Now that’s sure to impress the kiddies.

Hack Firmware on a Router

Navigating through a router’s multitude of menus and configuration settings can be confusing, especially given the obtuse documentation typically bundled with the device. That’s why we prefer third-party open-source firmware, which not only streamlines a router’s graphical user interface but also adds robust functionality. For Linksys routers, our firmware of choice is Tomato (www.polarcloud.com/tomato). As with all third-party firmware upgrades, installing Tomato does come with a slight risk of damaging your router. While we’ve never had any problems with this software, it’ll definitely void your router’s original warranty. Read our guide here!

Pick a Lock

Picking locks in video games has always been pretty easy; you make a skill check, break a pick or two, maybe even play a little mini-game, and the door swings right open. In the real world picking a lock is a lot tougher, but it’s still something you can learn to do with a little practice. You can find a great article about how to pick a lock at wikihow, complete with video, diagrams, and information on how to make your own picks.

Once you’ve mastered the basic pick-and-tension-wrench method, check out the article on bumping a lock. This is an even more sophisticated and efficient method for picking a lock, and is sure to impress your friends.

Differentiate Between Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb

Ah, the immortal question: Which reigns supreme, Dr Pepper or Mr PiBB? Well, actually it’s not much of a contest. After all, there’s a reason that Pepper got his PhD and PiBB is still stuck slaving away in the world of blue-collar sodas. Hell, the kids these days don’t even call Mr. PiBB “Mr.” anymore; he’s just “PiBB” now. It’s shameful, really.

But just knowing which is superior isn’t enough. A true nerd can distinguish between the two in a double-blind taste test and can reverse-engineer each into its secret ingredients. There’s a long standing rumor that Dr. Pepper is made with prune juice, but it turns out that this is false. Us? Of course we could tell you what the secret is, but we’ll let you figure it out for yourself.

Avoid DRM on everything

DRM is certainly a hot button issue these days, and there’s no better way to register your opinions than with your pocketbook. It would be nearly impossible to avoid DRM completely without resorting to piracy or giving up on a lot of fun things, but there are steps you can take to companies who release their IP without DRM. For instance, you can try awesome, DRM-free games such as Sins of a Solar Empire and World of Goo.

Most digital music stores these days are DRM free, including Amazon and Walmart’s stores, so you’re pretty much in the clear there, although most of iTunes is still off limits. Unfortunately, if you want DRM free video, Bittorrent is still pretty much your only option.

Download Flash Video and Bend it to Your Will

Any old schmuck can watch streaming video on sites like YouTube, but a real nerd’s nerd can save the video to disk, convert it to run on his PSP and his modded DS, and save it to DVD, all before you can say “copyright infringement.” If you can’t do all that, educate yourself.

Get Around In DOS

With every passing year, the percentage of nerds who grew up in a time after DOS gets larger. So listen up, young’ns, because even if it’s not something you have to use very much anymore, if you don’t know how to at least get around in DOS you’re going to look like a real PC lightweight.

Commit these seven commands to heart, and you’ll never find yourself stranded in DOS:

CD: Change directory; essential for getting around
DIR: List the contents of the current directory.
COPY: Copy a file, obviously. The syntax is “copy [filename] [destination filepath and filename]”
MKDIR: Create a directory. The syntax is “mkdir [directory name]”
MOVE: Move a file. Used with the same syntax as COPY
DEL: Delete a specified file.
RD: Delete a specified empty directory. If you want to delete a directory with contents, use RD /S /Q which will delete the entire directory tree

Rip a DVD to h.264

As hard drives get to be bigger and cheaper than ever before, it makes more and more sense to rip your optical data to your disk. Video transcoding can be kind a tricky process, but we’ve written a guid e to make the process much easier. So check it out and start clearing off your DVD shelf today.

Overclock Your PC and Tune Your BIOS

If you’re still running your computer’s components at their factory default settings, you’re missing out on a lot of potential power. You can check out our guide for overclocking your CPU and RAM by following this link, and then continue on to our piece about overclocking your videocard.

But there’s no reason to stop there. Check out our in-depth article on tweaking your BIOS to get even more control over the nitty-gritty inner workings of your rig.

Use Remote Desktop

One of the most powerful mobile computing tools available to Windows XP and Vista users is Remote Desktop. It’s pretty easy to set up and allows you to securely access and control your home or office computer from anywhere. To use Remote Desktop, follow these steps:

1. On the host computer, enable Remote Desktop. On an XP computer this is done by clicking on the “System” icon in the control panel, and then navigating to the “Remote” tab. Once there, check the box marked “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer” and click the “Select Remote Users…” button to select which users can connect remotely, bearing in mind that any users with administrator access can connect automatically.

2. Assuming your host computer is connected to the internet through a router, you’ll need to enable port forwarding for port 3389. If you do not know how to do this, simply hit this link, select your router model from the list and follow the instructions.

3. In order for other computers to connect to the host computer, you’ll need to either get a static IP address from your ISP, or use a service such as DynDNS.com, which will allow you to have a subdomain which always points to your computer, even if you have a dynamic IP. Also, make sure Remote Desktop is configured as an exception in Windows Firewall.

4. On the client computer, click on the Start button, then Accessories, then Communications. Click on the Remote Desktop Connection in that menu. In the menu that pops up specify your host computer’s IP address, and click connect. Then enter your login information just like you normally would, and you’re all set.

Debate the Relative Merits of an Imperial Star Destroyer vs. the USS Enterprise

It’s the debate to end all debates. The quintessential battle between two breeds of geek: the hypothetical confrontation between the USS Enterprise (1701-D from The Next Generation) from Star Trek and an Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars. The dispute will probably never be resolved, but satisfaction doesn’t come from a resolution, it stems from the details of the discussion. Do lasers have any effect on the Enterprises’s shields? (No, according the TNG episode “The Outrageous Okona”) Should you take into account TIE fighters? What about the Force? We could go on and on.

To adequately prepare for the debate, you should watch all 176 episodes of The Next Generation along with the three original Star Wars films. In addition, you can familiarize yourself with the various technical manuals released detailing the specifications for each ship, though these might not be considered “canon”. Pointing out technical inconsistencies and plot loopholes is also a reliable way to getting on your opponent’s nerves.

Build Your Own Computer

We’re a little hesitant to say too much about this last item on the list, since we don’t want to insult our reader’s PC IQ too much and we figure that if you read Maximum PC, you’ve probably built at least one PC. However, the bottom line is that if you’ve never built your own computer from parts, you might as well just turn in your pocket protector right now, because you’re not a real nerd.

If you’ve somehow made it this far without putting together a PC and want to start now, or just want our advice on a powerful machine you can make without breaking the bank, check out our most recent No-Compromises Budget PC guide and get building!

India: Terrorists Used American's Open Wi-Fi to Send their Emails

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:53:57 -0500

Wi-Fi theft is turning into a menace of inordinate proportions and home-based wireless networks are sitting ducks for bandwidth thieves, a demographic that now also includes wily terrorists. A case that has come to light in India will insure that some of the benevolent Wi-Fi hosts will never turn off their firewalls or show vacuous disregard towards bandwidth theft.

An American national, Kenneth Haywood, was nabbed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) from his Mumbai residence after it was found that e-mails claiming responsibility for heinous serial blasts in Ahmedabad, India on 26th July – that claimed 46 innocent lives and wounded many more – emanated from his IP address.

He is fortunate that the cyber experts of the ATS bought his plea, that his Wi-Fi might have been used by the terrorists to send the e-mail without him being in the know. Of course, their preliminary investigation also seems to suggest the same, as he hasn’t been booked under any law. However, he has been told not to leave the country until further notice.

Several fear-mongers have prophesied about the threat cyber terrorism poses. This isn’t the deadly manifestation of cyber terrorism that they talk about, it is a sinister beginning all the same.

Image Credit: Four Starters

March 2008: Windows Hacks & Tips

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:53:41 -0500

In the PDF archive of the March 2008 issue, you can find:

51 Tips & Hacks for Windows Vista and XP
The 2007 Game of the Year Awards
Overclocking your Videocard
How To: Stream Media to Your Xbox 360
And Lots of Awesome Product Reviews!
Ask the Doctor
Rig of the Month
The Watchdog
And a whole lot more!

Click the big giant cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!