How to Seamlessly Run That One Windows App You Need on a Mac

Want to run Windows app on a Mac with OS X? Friendly Computers would like to share with you these useful tips.

Love OS X but have that one stubborn app you can only run on Windows? With the right tools and setup, you can run individual Windows apps seamlessly on your Mac desktop, as though they were always meant to be there.

Over the years, we've covered virtualization, virtual machines—that is, running full-blown operating systems inside your main OS—quite a bit. What we're going to detail here, however, is not so much the setting up of one operating system (Windows) inside another (Mac OS X), but a setup that makes running one or a handful of must-have Windows applications on a Mac simple and seamless. It makes things much easier for non-expert computer users who just need access to an app that there isn't a Mac version for, and it makes the user experience feel less disjointed and cobbled together. When you're done here, you should be able to run that must-have Windows app on your Mac as though it's just another Mac application.

We'll highlight two methods for achieving this kind of setup. One is with Parallels, which is easy to set up, offers great OS X integration, and isn't entirely cheap. The other is withVirtualBox, an app that's free on any platform, but requires a good bit more fiddling, and doesn't offer all the just-works options of Parallels. (Skip straight to the Parallels orVirtualBox sections.)

Method One: The Parallels Solution

At about $80 for a license, Parallels (Desktop 5 for Mac, in this case) is not exactly free, we know. Parallels is, however, a really smart, attractive, and powerful virtualization tool built for one purpose: making Windows applications accessible on a Mac. If you have a Windows disc and license handy—especially Windows 7—it makes Microsoft's operating system feel like it was made to fit inside a Mac.

The shortlist pitch for why you should consider Parallels for your Mac:

• Windows app icons on your Dock: Not everybody uses the Dock, but those who do will find it very helpful to have both individual application icons on it, rather than having to hunt them out in a virtual Windows desktop.
• Virtual Windows folder: If you need access to a few Windows apps and components on a regular basis, Parallels keeps a Windows-badged folder stocked with everything stashed inside your virtual Windows installation.
• File type associations: If you need to open Microsoft Word .doc files inside an actual Word app inside Windows, and not with Mac's own TextEdit app, Parallels can make that happen. If the Mac has no idea what the file is, but a Windows app might, Parallels is on top of that, too.
• Look and feel: It's not an essential tool to getting work done, but having your desktop feel integrated, and your applications feel like they belong on your computer, can matter more than you'd think. Parallels does a pretty great job of forming the windows, buttons, and frame of Windows applications so that they feel right on a Mac.

Adam had previously detailed running Windows apps on a Mac with Parallels, but Parallels has come a long way since 2006, and it's worth taking a look at the most seamless integration around.

It's also worth noting that Parallels doesn't always cost $80. You can try it free for 15 days, upgrade from older versions for $50, and often find promotions around the web that get you the app for less, or get you Parallels in combination with other software. I found a coupon link that bundled Parallels with H&R Block at Home. I didn't really need that, but it also mailed me a CD copy of Parallels (normally $6 extra) and a year's license to download the software (another few dollars extra), and it all came in under the total cost of what you'd normally pay. Shop and Google around.

I'm going to run through the installation of WordPerfect, an application some engineers, lawyers, and folks working in offices with IT policies that refuse to die must sometimes rely on. I'm setting it up on a MacBook so that the user—who may, in fact, be married to me—has the easiest possible access to it. When a WordPerfect file arrives via email, double-clicking it opens up WordPerfect. WordPerfect is added to the Dock, it looks (mostly) like a Mac app when it runs, and the virtual machine that supports it in the background disappears when it's closed down. Here's how to get there.

Install Parallels and Your Windows Application

Installing Parallels itself is fairly easy—grab the download from Parallels' site, double-click the resulting file, and enter your Mac administrator password to proceed. When it's finished installing, if it doesn't happen automatically, go ahead and run Parallels Desktop yourself for the first time—head to the Spotlight menu in the upper-right corner, type in Parallels, and hit the result.

You'll get a window that only has one real option, to create a new virtual machine. The easiest way to go through the process is use an installation DVD, though if you've got your installation disc stored as an ISO or Mac disk image, you can go ahead and point Parallels at that, too. Proceed through the Windows installation, and when you're done entering your license key, user name, time zone, and the like, and moved through the virtual reboots, Parallels will be running on your desktop—a full Windows installation inside a little window.

If you've got an installation disc for your application, the easy thing is to just insert it. Parallels will likely detect that it's a disc with a Windows auto-run application and launch a familiar Windows pop-up, asking if you want to run "Install.exe," "Setup.exe," or whatever your disc offers. If not, open the CD from your Mac desktop, then double-click on any install/setup files that seem to have two red lines, looking like a pause symbol, attached to them.

If you're looking to install from an executable package you can download, the easy solution is to open Internet Explorer from the Windows frame (or the Windows-badged folder that just showed up on your Dock), head to the software's web site, then download and run the installer right from the web. If that doesn't fly, you can always just drop the .exe file or installation folder onto a USB drive from your Mac OS, then un-plug it and plug it back in. By default, Parallels should automatically pick up the device and offer it to Windows. If it doesn't, right-click on the glowing Windows-like icon on your dock, hover over the Devices menu, and then select the drive you've dropped it on.

Got your application installed? Let's make it so it runs like any other Mac application.

Fine-Tuning Your Parallels Setup

See that folder that's now sitting on the far-right side of your folder bookmarks? It contains the majority of applications contained in your little self-contained Windows installation. Click on it, then pick out the application you just installed and click that. In almost every case, you'll witness the small miracle of a Windows application launching inside a Mac. It may look a little incongruous, with its Windows title bar and coloring, but we'll fix that right now.

Once your virtual Windows is launched, Parallels adds a Start-Menu-style Windows icon to your dock. Right-click on it. Head up to the View menu that pops out of the Start button and select "Coherence" in the top-most section, if it's not already selected. If you don't see it, your Windows machine has already paused or suspended, but you can start it back up by hitting "Resume" from the Actions menu. This sets Parallels to hide away the bulk of Windows—the desktop, the taskbars, nearly everything—so that the only evidence of Windows you see is the window for the application you're using, along with one or two Dock icons. From the same right-click menu, under the "View" section, choose "Use MacLook." This applies a theme to Windows that makes it a good bit less incongruous when its applications are running on your Mac screen.

Back to that application you've got running in Windows. If you're using your Mac Dock to launch applications, right-click on the icon of your Windows app and choose "Keep in Dock." If you're more inclined to launch an application from Spotlight or Quicksilver, you should be able to find your app, since there's already a shortcut created inside that "Windows Applications" folder on your Dock. Want to put the shortcut somewhere else? Right-click on that folder full of Windows applications, then simply make a copy of the shortcuts you need, wherever you need them.

File Associations, Shared Folders, Auto-Suspending

We're now going to configure our Windows virtual machine for a little smoother integration. Open up Parallels Desktop from Spotlight, hit the Virtual Machines menu, and select "Configure." If you're using a Dock, you can also right-click on the glowing Windows orb and select "Configure."

Hit the Shared Applications category on the left, select your crucial Windows application, then click the SmartSelect button in the resulting panel.

In the case of WordPerfect, it uses pretty specific file formats not used by other applications, so you can see that Parallels has already informed the Mac that if it encounters a .wpd file, it should launch the virtualized WordPerfect and pass that file to it. Other applications may use formats that a Mac can open, too—Word files, particular image files, and the like. You can get specific in this menu, parceling out, for example, basic JPG and PNG opening to Mac's Preview, but opening TIFF files in that one Adobe app you only have a Windows copy of. In any case, when you see a file in your Mac that your Windows application will end up opening, you'll know it—the icon will be formatted for that app, and have the distinct Parallels "stripes" in the bottom-right.

Now, in the Shared Folders category, you can choose to keep your Mac home folder—containing Documents, Music, Pictures, and all your stuff, really—shared with Windows, which makes it fairly easy to trade files back and forth to an application like WordPerfect. You can go one further, though, by "sharing" your Desktop or Documents folder with Windows. Check off the options if they're there, or hit the + button and set up the synchronization between your Mac and Windows desktops and documents. Now, when you've got an app like WordPerfect running, you don't have to dig into your Mac home folder to find a place to save. Save a file to what Windows considers its own Desktop, and it'll show up on your Mac Desktop.

Finally, in the Startup/Shutdown category, I recommend the setup pictured above. Your virtualized Windows suspends itself when nothing is happening with any Windows application, which saves you memory and battery power, but makes it fairly quick to pull applications back up when you need them. Setting the startup view to Coherence also eliminates having to watch a glitchy Windows desktop appear and disappear as it boots up. On the Mac's shutdown, I like to quit out of Parallels, so it's a clean slate when starting up again, but you can set Parallels to suspend its machine instead when you power things down.

That's how I set up WordPerfect to run on a MacBook in such a way as to be nearly invisible as a Windows application. There are many, many more settings you can explore, including those that set up the keyboard shortcut equivalents between Windows and Mac applications, but those are best discovered and configured to one's own tastes.

Not quite sold on the utility of Parallels over a DIY solution? Here's how you can achieve nearly the same end result, though with, admittedly, less convenience and cohesion.

Method Two (the Free One): VirtualBox in Seamless Mode

VirtualBox requires a bit more hands-on operation to get Windows 7 installed. Luckily, we've run down those operations before. Consult our beginners guide to creating virtual machines in VirtualBox for help getting Windows installed. If you'd been considering a Boot Camp installation, or already have Windows installed in a Boot Camp partition, you can still benefit from VirtualBox. Blogger and entrepreneur Anil Dash has written up a guide to running Windows 7 under Mac OS X 10.6 for free, which makes your Boot Camp installation VirtualBox-friendly and then links the two up for the best of both worlds.

After you've got Windows 7 installed, you'll want to be sure to install VirtualBox Guest Additions, which is really a two-click process—hit "Install Guest Additions" from the Devices menu of VirtualBox, and then choose to run the installer when when it pops up. Restart your Windows installation after it finishes. Fire up a new "Seamless" option by selecting it from the Machine menu, or hitting Left Command+L.

You'll notice that Windows basically disappears—except for your toolbar/taskbar, which hovers over your Dock, or at the bottom of your screen, if you don't use a Dock. That's, well, ugly. Right-click on the Windows taskbar, select Properties, and look for the option to auto-hide the taskbar.

Now it's out of the way, but what about when you need to get to something? VirtualBox lets you assign a key, or key combination, on your Mac to represent the Start menu. It's Ctrl+Esc by default, but you can change it in your VirtualBox preferences. Given the power of the Start Search feature in Windows Vista and 7, it's easy to launch applications by typing out the first few letters—kind of like Spotlight. When applications launch, they get a Mac-like window frame, and closing them means Windows basically disappears.

Be sure to head into the settings of your Virtual Machine for Windows and set up the Shared Folders. It's not that much harder than Parallels, really, but the way they show up—as network drives—is a bit different. You can connect your Windows and Mac desktops and document folders for easy file saving and retrieval.

To finish up making your VirtualBox a bit more convenient than just running a Virtual Machine, learn the keyboard shortcuts for pausing the machine when not in use (Left Command + P), and be sure to choose the "Save Machine State" option when shutting down VirtualBox. That way, when you fire up Windows 7 again, it will resume in its Seamless state, waiting for you to launch the Start menu and get at what you need.

Another Possible Option: WineBottler/CrossOver

When WINE works, it's a great thing, running applications meant for Windows on Mac or Linux, without the overhead of an entire virtual machine. Thing is, it doesn't always work. Luckily, two applications that make it easy to try out an app in WINE on Mac exist: CrossOver Mac, a paid application that offers a trial period, and WineBottler, a custom build of WINE that works great at framing small Windows apps as native OS X programs. Both are worth looking into if you've got one or two applications you need to run, but don't necessarily need access to an entire Windows OS.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5521308/how-to-seamlessly-run-that-one-windows-app-you-need-on-a-mac

Boost Netbook Speed with an SD Card & ReadyBoost

Want to increase the perfomance of your netbook? Friendly Computers would like to share with you this article.

Looking for a way to increase the performance of your netbook?  Here’s how you can use a standard SD memory card or a USB flash drive to boost performance with ReadyBoost.

Most netbooks ship with 1Gb of Ram, and many older netbooks shipped with even less.  Even if you want to add more ram, often they can only be upgraded to a max of 2GB.  With ReadyBoost in Windows 7, it’s easy to boost your system’s performance with flash memory.  If your netbook has an SD card slot, you can insert a memory card into it and just leave it there to always boost your netbook’s memory; otherwise, you can use a standard USB flash drive the same way. Also, you can use ReadyBoost on any desktop or laptop; ones with limited memory will see the most performance increase from using it.

Please Note:  ReadyBoost requires at least 256Mb of free space on your flash drive, and also requires minimum read/write speeds.  Most modern memory cards or flash drives meet these requirements, but be aware that an old card may not work with it.

Using ReadyBoost

Insert an SD card into your card reader, or connect a USB flash drive to a USB port on your computer.  Windows will automatically see if your flash memory is ReadyBoost capable, and if so, you can directly choose to speed up your computer with ReadyBoost.

The ReadyBoost settings dialog will open when you select this.  Choose “Use this device” and choose how much space you want ReadyBoost to use.

Click Ok, and Windows will setup ReadyBoost and start using it to speed up your computer.  It will automatically use ReadyBoost whenever the card is connected to the computer.

When you view your SD card or flash drive in Explorer, you will notice a ReadyBoost file the size you chose before.  This will be deleted when you eject your card or flash drive.

If you need to remove your drive to use elsewhere, simply eject as normal.

Windows will inform you that the drive is currently being used.  Make sure you have closed any programs or files you had open from the drive, and then press Continue to stop ReadyBoost and eject your drive.

If you remove the drive without ejecting it, the ReadyBoost file may still remain on the drive.  You can delete this to save space on the drive, and the cache will be recreated when you use ReadyBoost next time.

Conclusion

Although ReadyBoost may not make your netbook feel like a Core i7 laptop with 6GB of RAM, it will still help performance and make multitasking even easier.  Also, if you have, say, a memory stick and a flash drive, you can use both of them with ReadyBoost for the maximum benefit.  We have even noticed better battery life when multitasking with ReadyBoost, as it lets you use your hard drive less.

SD cards and thumb drives are relatively cheap today, and many of us have several already, so this is a great way to improve netbook performance cheaply.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15265/boost-netbook-speed-with-an-sd-card-readyboost/

28 Time-Saving Tricks for Google, Facebook, and More

Friendly Computers found this article useful and would like to share it with you.

Think you know all of the tricks at your favorite Internet sites? Think again.

Even if you're on Google, Facebook, and YouTube every day, you might not be tapping those sites' full potential. Read on to speed up your Internet abilities, unlock new features, and find a new favorite tip or two.

Google Gimmicks

Search within a site: Narrow down your search results to a single site. Type (search query) site:(domain); an example would be entering: video card tips site:pcworld.com to find pages only at that location. You can even limit results to within sections of a site, as in this example: twitter site:pcworld.com/businesscenter.

Search for file types:Maybe you want to track down a certain document that's a PDF. Enter your usual search string plusfiletype:pdf to find only those pages. This method also works with PostScript (ps), Office docs (doc,ppt, xls), Rich Text (rtf), Plain Text (txt), and more. You can find a list of searchable file types here.

Exclude results: Include a minus sign to exclude certain results. Suppose you want to find news about Apple unrelated to the iPad. Type Apple -iPad. You can also combine the previous tips, such as Apple -iPad -site:apple.com and Apple -iPad -PDF.

Get local details: Forget manual time conversion; just enter time [city] (as in Time Tokyo) to get the current local time. Or try weather [city] for a forecast. For more local details, try [city] map, movies [city or ZIP code], and [restaurant name or cuisine] [city or ZIP code]. This works for a few other regular search strings, like Weather [city], stock quotes, and more--check out Google's full list.

Make conversions: Swap units of measure, such as measurements of volume or distance; this works for converting different currencies, too. Try [number and unit] in [new unit] such as 7 inches in cm or 30 Euros in USD.

Bing Bonanza

Find links to files: Find pages that host or lead to certain file types, such as music. Enter [search term] contains:[file type]such as Wilco contains:MP3 to find MP3s from the band Wilco. Try this kind of search with many other file types, such as WMA, PDF, AAC, DOC, and nearly anything else.

Remove the background image: Bing sure is cute, but its big photos can be distracting. Visithttp://www.bing.com/?rb=0 for a plain, gray version of the site.

Save searches as RSS feeds: If you want to stay on top of hits to a search query, turn it into an RSS feed. After loading your results, append&format=rss to the end of the new URL, and view it in your favorite RSS reader.

Fix Your Facebook

Hide application notices: Are you sick of Farmville, Mafia Wars, and other Facebook apps cluttering your feed? Mouse over the entry, and click Hide. You'll block those alerts from your wall.

Invite a list of friends to an event: You don't have to manually click a bunch of friends to send event invitations. Instead, create a list first. Click Friends in the left column, and use Create a List on top to pick certain friends. When making an event invitation, click the Filter Friends tab to show only the list. Click Select All.

Hide content from certain contacts: Keep your mom and work acquaintances from seeing messages intended for your inner circle. Click the lock privacy icon, and choose Customize.

From there, you can hide the post from specific people, or show it only to your entourage. For more on Facebook's privacy settings, read "Protect Your Privacy With the New Facebook Settings."

Cut to the core: The Lite version of Facebook strips away most of the clutter in the main design. It's great if you're on a slow Internet connection, browsing on a netbook, or just want to avoid the usual mess.

Browse to lite.facebook.com to give it a try, and click the link at the top of the page to toggle back to the full site.

Twitter Tweaks

Schedule tweets: You can set up a schedule for your Twitter account, so posts can go up while you are asleep, or--heaven forbid--are away from your gadgets.

This way, you'll be able to tweet across time zones (so your international followers won't have to scroll all the way down to hear from you, perhaps), and keep your Twitter account active when you need to focus on a project.

Many sites offer this feature, including HootSuite,SocialOomph, and Twuffer. I like Twuffer for its simplicity, although the others have additional features, such as Facebook support.

Get deals by following companies: Some of your favorite companies might post deals to Twitter. You'll have to sort away businesses that spam followers too often, but I like following @amazonmp3,@amazongames, and @woot.

If you really want to step up your hustle, make a new Twitter account specifically for landing freebies so the spam won't get to your real one. Keep it all straight with a twitter client that manages multiple accounts, such asTweetdeck. Also, check out "How to Win Prizes on Twitter" for more tips.

Learn about current events: Look for your localHappen.in feed, which charts Twitter chatter based on your location.

If a bunch of people in the same area post "bridge out," Happen.in will repost the details so that you keep on track of regional events and trends. The Twitter Website includes similar functionality in the right-hand column. Adjust those Trending settings to set it for your area.

Expand URLs:Shortened links could send you to a funny YouTube clip, a popular article in the New York Times, or a site designed to riddle your PC with malware. Use aGreasemonkey script (a Firefox add-on) and just hover your mouse over the cryptic URL to see the full version at the bottom of the window.

If you're in a different browser, try pbtweet or read How to Use Greasemonkey Scripts in IE, Chrome, and Safarifor more details.

Texting Tips and Smartphone Secrets

Toggle mobile formatting: Many Websites detect your mobile browser and offer up a mobile version of themselves with bigger fonts and simpler formatting. If a site doesn't do this automatically, try putting m. or mobile. at the front of the Web address (URL), as inhttp://mobile.pcworld.com.

If you want to swap a mobile site into its full, PC design, look for a link at the top or bottom of the page.

Get e-mail as texts: You can have email messages sent to your phone as texts, which can be convenient. Maybe your RSS reader can forward content as e-mail, and you want to be alerted to updates in a rarely used feed.

Enter your 10-digit mobile phone number prefix and carrier suffix, such as 2223334444@txt.att.net. Here's a list of other carriers. Also, read "10 Killer Texting Tricks" for more SMS goodness.

Send text messages from AIM: Your PC can send texts to a mobile phone for free. Within an AIM client, send a text to the number with + and the country code prefix. For example, a San Francisco message might be directed to +14151112222.

eBay and Craigslist

Mind your eBay reserve: Tiptoe through starting prices when auctioning off an item to save money. If you're pricing something near eBay's thresholds of $1, $10, $25, $50, and $200, cut back by just a cent to save yourself a little cash, which can add up for high-volume sales.

If you list something at $199.99 for example, eBay charges $1. For a $200 starting price, eBay charges $2. For more information, check out the eBay Feespage.

Spell poorly: If you're buying hard-to-spell product, try searching for misspelling or common typos ("playstaion"), or enter * as a text wildcard such as "playst*". (eBay will find hits for one or more additional characters.)

You might stumble over auctions that others haven't found--which means less bidding competition. If selling, enter a few of those errors into your listing to snare misspelled searches (though probably not in the title--you don't want to disappear from the correctly-spelled search results).

Search Craigslist with RSS: Keeping an eye out for a free leather couch on Craigslist? Save yourself from searching every 10 minutes by setting up an RSS feed for the search results by entering your search within Craigslist and clicking the RSS button in the lower-right to add it to your RSS reader of choice.

Entertainment Extras: YouTube, Hulu, Flickr, iTunes, and Xbox Live

Download YouTube and Hulu: Watch online videos away from the Internet by downloading them to your PC. The simplest methods usually work best for noncommercial video, such as random YouTube home movies. But at press time, I got StreamTransport to save videos even from Hulu. Play clips back with VLC.

Watch high-quality YouTube: Bump up the resolution in supported clips. Just click the number and arrow in the play bar; it's likely 360p by default. Pick a higher number for the best quality.

Link straight to part of a YouTube clip: Instead of sending people to the beginning of a clip, you can create a link that plays from a spot in the middle that you choose. Just add #t=[number]m[number]s to the end of the URL, such ashttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf6IQgFxpIA#t=00m11s to begin 11 seconds in.

Initiate console game downloads: Microsoft's Xbox Live site might seem superfluous on a PC. However, you can queue up downloads and activate purchases through your computer, and when you log in back on the console, they'll transfer automatically.

Upload to Flickr through e-mail: Instead of manually uploading photos, you can send them through e-mail. This can work well from an old mobile phone to quickly send pictures from a PC. In the Emails & Notificationstab of the Account options, click Create an upload-to-flickr email address to configure the feature.

Search and link to iTunes content in a browser: The iTunes store lives in its own application, but you can access specific apps, songs, searches, or anything else with a URL. To search, try http://itunes.com/[search term] such ashttp://itunes.com/evernote. If your search comes up with a single result (as in this example), you'll jump to that page within iTunes. To copy a direct URL to an iTunes store page, right-click an item within iTunes, and choose Copy Link.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/194260-3/28_timesaving_tricks_for_google_facebook_and_more.html

10 Linux rescue tools for recovering Linux, Windows, or Mac machines

Friendly Computers would like to share this article with you.

Our consulting firm has had a rash of problems recently that required the help of Linux rescue tools. From corrupt partition tables to severely infected machines, Linux tools come in handy when the host system won’t boot. But because of the plethora of tools available, it’s sometimes tough to sift through the cruft and find the ones that are usable. So I decided to highlight some of the better tools. I hope one or two of them will find their way to your toolkit.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

1: Knoppix

Knoppix is one of the better tools for rescuing data from sick machines. It’s a full-blown live Linux distribution with a strong, user-friendly GUI that will allow you to easily mount a drive and then copy the data (which you will locate in an easy-to-use file manager) to an external source. Of course, Knoppix comes with the full arsenal of Linux commands, which place just about everything you need at your fingertips.

2: Trinity Rescue Kit

Trinity Rescue Kit might leave you wondering, “Why isn’t this tool being developed faster and on a larger scale? Although TRK is rather slow to develop, what it offers is just short of amazing. Place it on a USB drive, boot your virus-laden machine, and scan the mounted drives with clamav, antivir, bitdefender, and more. This tool is all command line, so you might have to bone up on your commands to really make use of it.

3: Avira AntiVir

Avira AntiVir is a command-line antivirus tool that is fast, robust, and dependable. There is a GUI tool, but installing it is almost more trouble than it’s worth. (It requires Java.) Installing AntiVir on Linux isn’t the easiest of tasks, but it’s certainly no kernel compilation.

4: GParted Live

GParted Live is a live Linux distribution that allows you to manipulate partitions on a drive. It supports numerous file systems and lets you can resize, create, and delete, partitions. You can run GParted Live from a CD or a USB drive, so it’s very portable.

5: SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCd is another live Linux rescue CD that offers numerous tools to handle numerous tasks, including partition manipulation, file recovery, hard disk testing, ftp, and disk formatting. As with most live Linux distributions, you can place SystemRescueCd on either or CD or USB drive, and it offers an easy-to-use GUI and plenty of tools.

6: Ubuntu Rescue Remix

Ubuntu Rescue Remix is quickly becoming one of my favorite data recovery tools. Like all good live Linux CD tools, it includes an outstanding GUI (it is Ubuntu after all) that can help you handle tasks other tools can’t handle. You can recover and rescue Mac files/filesystems, recover data from nonstandard external drives, recover deleted files, and more. The one thing URR is missing is antivirus tools. But, since this is a Linux rescue disc, once installed, you can simply add the tools you need to your USB live CD.

7: F-Secure Rescue CD

F-Secure Rescue CD is based on Knoppix and allows you to check the integrity of your installed applications. It also allows advanced data repair and recovery, as well as recovery from that ever-dreaded malware!

8: Ddrescue

Ddrescue is a Linux tool designed to copy data from one file block device to another. This tool will aid you in rescuing data when your drive is suffering from read errors. Unlike many of the tools on this list, Ddrescue is not a live distribution but a tool you will use on a running Linux machine. So to rescue data, you will have to attach that troubled disk to the working Linux machine.

9: Safecopy

Safecopy is similar to ddrescue, allowing you to copy files from a disk suffering from I/O errors. It also includes a tool that allows you to read data from CDs in raw mode, as well as issue device resets and simulate bad media for testing and benchmarking.

10: Linux rescue mode

This is the only entry on the list that isn’t a downloadable tool. Linux rescue mode is a mode booted with the help of a Linux boot CD, allowing you to repair a broken system. From rescue mode, you can recover a root password, repair or reinstall the boot loader, and more. When you boot into rescue mode, it will typically mount your installed system into /mnt/sysimage, where you can take care of any business necessary.

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1458&tag=results;CR1

How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi

Friendly Computers found this tips about staying safe on public Wi-Fi very useful and would like to share it with you.

Picture this: You're at a café with your laptop and latte in hand, getting ready to review new sales leads and the quarterly financial projections. First you hop on the free Wi-Fi that the shop's management provides. Then you connect your laptop to a projector so that the entire café can take a look, and finally you hand out some printed copies of your confidential product specifications to the other patrons so that they can follow along.

That may sound ridiculous, but if you're using public-access Wi-Fi without taking the proper precautions, you might as well be asking your coffee compatriots to partake in confidential company information.

Nothing Is Private on Open Wi-Fi

Today, most tech users know how (and why) to secure their home wireless routers. Windows 7 and Vista now pop up a dialog box to warn you when you're connecting to unencrypted wireless networks.

In a coffee shop, an airport lounge, or a library, however, people frequently connect without thinking twice--and though using an unencrypted connection to check a baseball score or a flight status might be acceptable, reading e-mail or performing any Web activity that requires a login is akin to using your speakerphone in the middle of a crowd.

So why don't all businesses encrypt their Wi-Fi networks? The answer lies in the difficult key distribution system in the IEEE 802.11 design specification: To encrypt traffic, the network owner or manager needs to select a password, also known as a "network key." The arrangement requires one password per network, shared among all users whether the owner has selected the less secure, outdated WEP or the more secure WPA or WPA2.

At home, all you have to do is set it up once, tell your family the password, and surf worry-free from a poolside lounge chair. In a coffee shop, the barista would have to tell each patron the password (or the 26-character hexadecimal WEP key) and perhaps even troubleshoot their connection--definitely not a chore that your typical java slinger would relish. In that situation, nothing beats a blank password for ease of use.

Even if the network is encrypted, however, you're still not completely safe. Once your computer knows the password, your communication is safe only from people who aren't on the network; all the other diners in the café can see your traffic because they are using the same password.

Your Personal Business Is Your Competitors' Business

But what if you think that your data isn't important enough for someone to snoop on? Perhaps you're just browsing Websites, not logging in to any e-mail systems or Web applications that require passwords. You should be safe then, right? Not necessarily.

Imagine you're on airport Wi-Fi while you're returning from an industry trade show. Instead of checking the hundreds of e-mail messages waiting for you (unlikely, right?), you decide to browse your competitors' Websites, looking for ideas. Or maybe you elect to research potential acquisition targets.

In the background, however, your e-mail client detects an Internet connection and starts to download your e-mail. A colleague back at headquarters sees your instant-messenger status change to 'online' and sends you a panicked plea: "Huge problem @ factory. Possible recall. Call Bob ASAP!"

Armed with nothing more than wireless packet analyzer software, a fellow conference attendee in the same seating area may be able to glean competitive intelligence based solely on the Websites that you visit and your (probably unencrypted) instant messages--not to mention the personal e-mail from the recruiter indicating you're ready to jump ship, or the notes reflecting your relationship problems with your significant other. In short, the "other guy" is reading your messages before you are, and you didn't even do anything.

Stick to SSL for Webmail

First, to combat mail snoops, use a Webmail system with HTTPS for the whole session. Almost all Webmail systems use HTTPS when asking you to log in, so your password is transmitted securely. However, after authentication, they usually switch back to HTTP because it reduces the computational strain on their servers and makes serving advertisements easier.

That means that everyone who is on the same wireless network (either unencrypted or with a shared password) can read the content of your e-mail. In some cases, a person can steal your session cookie and log in to your Webmail session without your password. (That is, until you click the 'Logout' link--which you do every time, right?)

Two very notable exceptions are Gmail and your corporate e-mail system (such as Outlook Web Access). Earlier this year, Gmail switched from the common practice of using HTTPS just for logins to using HTTPS throughout the entire Webmail session.

Google Apps users were previously able to opt in to this feature, but it is now the default with the ability to opt out (if you hate security). This change, combined with Google's new suspicious-login detection algorithms, make Gmail a standout among free Webmail providers. If you were looking for a reason to switch from your AOL, Hotmail, or Yahoo account, you've found it.

Your company's Webmail system is also likely protected by HTTPS at all times, because that is the default configuration for most systems. However, if you check your work messages using local software (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mac OS X's Mail) instead of HTTPS Web-based e-mail, you may or may not be using encryption.

Paid Hotspots: Safety Not Included

While researching this article, I found a common misconception among travelers and coffee enthusiasts--namely, the idea that commercial hotspots that require pay-per-hour or monthly subscription fees (AT&T, Boingo, GoGo, T-Mobile) are more secure than their free counterparts because a payment and a password are involved.

In fact, these hotspots are almost always unencrypted, and they employ what is called a "captive Web portal" only to prevent access to the Internet until you enter a payment method (or subscriber password). Though this "gateway" Web portal is usually delivered over HTTPS (to protect the credit card information or the password), once authenticated all the traffic is unencrypted on the wireless network.

As a result, your $10 monthly fee gives you access but not security. In fact, due to the nature of radio frequency transmissions, another person--even if they aren't a subscriber--can still view any unencrypted traffic that you send, just by joining the same SSID wireless network.

This means that outsiders can easily observe and capture any regular HTTP Websites you visit, any unencrypted POP3 e-mail you access, and any FTP transfers you make. Talented hackers can even modify their wireless card to clone the identity of your wireless card, thus obtaining free access through a commercial hotspot by "piggybacking" on your signals.

Use Your VPN

If your company offers a VPN (virtual private network) connection with Internet access, you should take advantage of that functionality when using either free or subscription Wi-Fi hotspots. By enabling the VPN function on your laptop, you ensure that all of your communication is encrypted with high-strength ciphers and tunneled from the Wi-Fi hotspot, across the Internet, and into your company's data center, where it is unpacked and sent out on the company's Internet connection.

This is a secure method of accessing company resources (intranet, e-mail, databases) because no matter who is also on the shared wireless network, you have a private tunnel back to your company. In some companies' VPN configurations, you can also browse the Internet in addition to accessing company resources.

Such an arrangement may be slightly slower than unencrypted Web browsing, but the security makes it worthwhile. Additionally, if you are traveling in a country that imposes Internet restrictions (such as China or Egypt), you can tunnel your traffic back through your U.S.-based VPN connection and reach sites as if you were stateside.

If your company doesn't offer a VPN service or has a "split tunneling" VPN (in which only requests to company resources travel through the encrypted tunnel, and all other traffic transmits unencrypted directly to the target), don't worry--you can still stay safe.

Try out HotSpot Shield, a no-cost VPN service from AnchorFree. The company offers its own VPN software that you install on your laptop prior to using public Wi-Fi.

Once you enable the software and service, it encrypts your traffic and sends it through a tunnel to the HotSpot Shield data center and then out to the Internet, in much the same way a company's VPN server does. HotSpot Shield even has mobile VPN settings (with no downloads necessary) to protect your Web surfing on your iPhone using the built-in Cisco VPN client software that Apple provides.

By using a such a service, you make your connection secure all the way from the coffee shop to the AnchorFree data center in Northern California. Once there, your traffic travels unencrypted to its final destination on the Internet, as if you were browsing from a laptop plugged directly into the company's data center.

This arrangement isn't perfectly secure, since the encrypted tunnel does not travel all the way to the Website you visit. However, it's certainly more secure than a setup with no VPN at all; to get in, would-be data thieves would need access to the AnchorFree data center, not just the Wi-Fi network you're on.

Wi-Fi Surfing Safety Summary

So, to recap:

1. If your company has a VPN that you can use for Web browsing, use it.

2. If you can't use a company VPN, give HotSpot Shield a try.

3. Don't equate subscription (paid-for) Wi-Fi Internet with secure browsing.

4. On unencrypted wireless networks, everyone can see where you are surfing (except on HTTPS Websites).

5. On encrypted wireless networks, everyone with the password can see where you are surfing (this could be a handful of people in your house, or hundreds of people in an airport).

6. If you must use a Wi-Fi hotspot without any form of VPN, imagine that your laptop is connected to a stadium Jumbotron. Don't visit any sites you wouldn't visit with 80,000 people looking over your shoulder.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/194062-3/how_to_stay_safe_on_public_wifi.html

Send Secure Info Over the Internet

Don’t know how to safely email passwords, account numbers, and other sensitive information. Friendly Computers would like to share these useful tips with you.

You can't trust Internet email with potentially compromising information, such as your credit card or account numbers, social security numbers, or important passwords. As your message moves from one server to another, several people have the opportunity to read it.

So what should you do when you have to get sensitive information to someone, and snailmail just isn't fast enough? I'll give you several solutions.

Whatever option you pick, see What Is the Best Way to Create Strong Passwords? And if you have to share the password with the recipient, use the phone--just to be safe.

Public/Private Key Encryption: This elegant solution is supported by several programs, including Outlook 2007. The public key can encrypt but not decrypt, so you can safely share it with anyone. You keep the private key, which does the decrypting, to yourself.

Unfortunately, both the sender and the recipient must set up this type of encryption, and it's not easy for the less technically inclined. That makes this a good choice in a business environment where everyone has an IT department, but not for occasional, personal communication.

Password-Protected .Zip Files: Depending on what software you use to create compressed .zip archives, you may or may not have an option to password-protect the files inside it. And that option may or may not support high-quality AES encryption.

And don't go this route if it doesn't support AES. The .zip format's standard password protection is easy to hack.

Luckily, many third-party .zip programs support AES encryption, and they're compatible with each other. These include industry leader WinZip, and the free, open-source7-Zip. Whatever program you use, make sure you pick the AES option when you compress and encrypt your files.

Unfortunately, Windows' built-in .zip tool doesn't support AES, so you can't simply assume that your recipient will be able to open your archive. If they don't have a compression program that supports AES .zips, don't want to install one, or don't know what you're talking about, this isn't your option.

Secure Message and File-Sending Services: You don't have to actually email your private information. You can upload it to a secure web site, and let the recipient download.

I'm recommending one service in particular: Send.(the period is part of the company name). It's free, and you don't even have to share your password with the recipient. Each person has their own private password.

When you post a message on Send., the site emails a notice to the recipient, who will need their own free Send. account to access your message.

There's a slight chance that a criminal will intercept that first email and create the account before the legitimate recipient does. To avoid this, send an initial message with nothing confidential in it. That way, the recipient will be safely signed up, with their own, hopefully strong password, before you send them something important.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/193892/send_secure_info_over_the_internet.html

How to Analyze, Clean Out, and Free Space on Your Hard Drive

Friendly Computers would like to share with you this article.

Hard drive space is cheaper than ever, but as Parkinson's Law dictates, your data (and, let's face it, BitTorrent addiction) somehow expands to fill your space available for storage. Here's a few simple but effective ways to clean out your hard drive.

Photo by gary j wood.

Whether you're looking to free up gigabytes worth of hard drive space or you just want to clear out the extra cruft because you're serious about a clean hard drive, we'll highlight how to find and remove the biggest space hogging files on your drive, remove unnecessary files hiding deep in your filesystem, and offer a few tips for keeping things clean. The main focus of this guide is on Windows, but I'll offer up Mac alternatives where available. (Mac users, you may also want to check out our previous guide to cleaning up and reviving your bloated, sluggish Mac.)

Hunt Down and Remove Large Files

We've featured tons of free hard drive analyzers over the years, but my current favorite is therecently mentioned Disk Space Fan, so that's what I'll use first here. Then I'll move on to the classic WinDirStat. (Mac users, check out Disk Inventory X or GrandPerspective.)

Analyze Your Drive with Disk Space Fan: To get started, download Disk Space Fan and let's get started. When you first launch Disk Space Fan, the app simply displays drives on your system; click on a disk in the sidebar and you'll see what kind of space is available in pie-chart form.

We want a lot more from the app than that, so pick the drive you want to clean up and click the Scan for Details button. The app will quickly analyze your hard drive, and when it's done, you'll be presented with a cool visualization like this:

What you're looking at is a pretty cool graphical representation of your hard drive usage by folders. At the center of the graphic is your hard drive; each concentric circle moving out from the center represents a folder. (For example, when Disk Space Fan completes its first scan, the center may represent your C:\ drive. One of the larger arcs directly outside the center may represent C:\Windows. The further you go from the center circle, the further you've drilled down into the file system. If you go several levels out, you'll end up looking at something further into the file system at something like C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore.

All you have to do to determine what an arc represents on your hard drive is hover over it with your mouse and you'll see not only what file and folder it represents, but also how much space it's eating on your hard drive. You can drill down into any folder by simply clicking on any arc. When you do, you'll get a new graphical representation, this time with the folder you just clicked on at the center and its sub-folders and files surrounding it.

So how do you go from this fancy graphic to cleaning up your hard drive? It's actually pretty simple. The larger an arc, the more disk space it takes up. Drill down on the big arcs and you'll find the big files. Right click file or folder from the app to view it, browse to it, see its properties, or delete it altogether.

Find Hard Drive Hogs with WinDirStat: Disk Space Fan may win out on eye candy, but we'll always have a special place in our hearts for the classic, open source WinDirStat. If you've drilled through Disk Space Fan but want to take a second pass through your drive with a different lens, download WinDirStat, point it at the drive you want analyzed, and click OK. Once it's finished chomping through your drive, you'll see something like this:

Again, it's a graphical representation of the files and folders on your drive, but with a different spin from Disk Space Fan. WinDirStat displays every file and folder on your drive represented by size, so you can quickly examine the largest rectangles (the larger the rectangle, the larger the file on your drive), click it to see what it is, or right-click and select Explorer Here if you want to see the file in Explorer and delete it. WinDirStat color codes popular file types so you can quickly identify videos or MP3s, for example, and clicking on a file type in the file type panel will highlight those file types in the graphical representation no matter where they are on your drive. (See below.)

Awfully handy, huh?

Clean Out the Unneeded Crap

The above methods will help you hunt down those common files, large and small, eating up your precious hard drive space, but when it comes to the little stuff that fills up your computer with crap a little at a time, you can't go wrong with the beloved CCleaner (the first "C" is for Crap). CCleaner runs through common Windows spots where unnecessary files build up (IE, Windows Explorer, temporary files, etc.), as well as common applications (think Firefox, Chrome, etc.), finds the stuff that isn't necessary to run and that you may want to get rid of, and cleans it out.

So download it, install it if you don't already have it (make sure to untick the checkbox asking to install the Yahoo Toolbar), and fire it up. Before you run it the first time, you may want to look at everything CCleaner wants to clean up, and if you see anything you're not so sure you want cleaned, untick its corresponding checkbox. Once you're ready to give it a first run, click the Analyze button.

CCleaner will analyze the files your current settings will remove and tell you how much space you'll clean out along with more specific numbers from each place it cleans. If you're happy with the way things are looking, click the Run Cleaner button and let CCleaner vacuum up and remove those files you just analyzed. (As CCleaner notes when you click Run, it will permanently delete these files, so make sure it's not cleaning anything you don't want it to.)

The only setback with CCleaner is that it doesn't have any scheduling feature to allow you to run it regularly without manually running through this process every time, but luckily our crafty friend the How-To Geek has detailed how to set up CCleaner to run on a schedule, so if you'd prefer setting it and forgetting it, check out his instructions.

Automatically Clean Out Your Downloads Folder

If there's one folder on my hard drive that quickly fills up with junk that I only need temporarily, and for a relatively short time, it's my Downloads folder. If I downloaded something from the internet that I wanted to use, I've either installed it or moved it into more useful folders. Whatever's left in my Downloads folder for a couple of weeks is more likely than not junk.

Earlier this week I showed you how to automatically clean and organize your Downloads folder along with other folders on your desktop using Belvedere for Windows and Hazel for Macs. If you're serious about automation and desktop organization, you can do all sorts of cool stuff with those tools, but if keeping your hard drive clean and freeing up space is your concern, let's focus on your Downloads folder. Check out the step-by-step post for details, but creating a Belvedere rule to send files in your Downloads folder to your Recycle Bin after they're X weeks old is a great way to keep that folder clean and free up a little extra space on your hard drive.

If you don't want to constantly run yet another system tray application, you can run Belvedere as a scheduled task—similar to how you scheduled CCleaner above—with the -r <integer> command line switch. This defines how many times you want Belvedere to run before the app silently exits. If you wanted Belvedere to silently run through its rules one time, for example, you'd schedule a command like:

%programfiles%\Belvedere\Belvedere.exe -r 1

...as a Windows Scheduled Task. If you'd set up a rule like the one above, Belvedere would run once when you scheduled it to, send old downloads to your Recycle Bin, then quit.

Install a New Hard Drive

Let's face it: We could go on all day finding system files that are safe to delete, and we could get ruthless about what gets to stay on your hard drive, but if you find yourself constantly bumping up against the limits of your hard drive despite following some of the strategies above, you may just need more hard drive space.

Sure it's a bit of a cop out, but hard drive space really is cheap, and rather than spend too much time obsessing over every little file on your computer, you may want to evaluate your situation and determine whether or not you're better off with a new drive altogether. You can snag a 1TB+ drive on NewEgg for around $100, and installing a new hard drive is probably much easier than you think.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5511904/how-to-analyze-clean-out-and-free-space-on-your-hard-drive