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Windows eight Developer Preview is out and even casual users square measure jumping at the prospect to undertake out the new, and arguably improved, software. although you concentrate on yourself a Windows seven knowledgeable, don’t expect to work out Windows eight right away; the software options associate degree interface ne'er seen before in previous editions of Microsoft Windows.
In fact, Windows eight is that far more confusing for those aware of the in operation system; even the beginning menu — a staple that’s been gift since the Windows National Trust days — is totally redesigned. to assist you work out a way to navigate the new OS, I’ve place along an inventory of tips and tricks that ought to be helpful to each novices and super users. 8. New, amazing Keyboard Shortcuts
Along with the updated style, Windows eight comes with some cool new keyboard shortcuts. though some of the recent shortcuts — like Win+R to launch Run — square measure still gift, a number of the new keyboard mixtures provide a lot of utility than the recent shortcuts. Windows+Q, as an example, offers Windows+R a endure its money; it options identical functions as Run, however at identical time permits you to go looking your system for put in programs or flick thru associate degree alphabetised list of apps.
Here are a few of my favorite Windows 8 shortcuts:
Windows: Toggles between the Start Screen and the Windows desktop, or between the Start Screen and an active app.
Windows+Tab: Toggle between running apps.
Windows+C: Displays the Charms (the Settings, Devices, Share and Search options), date and time, and power options.
Windows+F: Opens the new Windows search feature, Search Files.
Windows+I: Opens the Settings pane and displays the wireless networking, speaker, screen brightness, language, and power options.
Windows+O: Rotates orientation on tablet and slate PCs.
Windows+W: Opens the Search Files function from within the Settings tab.
Windows+Z: Displays a contextual menu when running a full-screen Metro app.
7. Use a Picture Password
Just about every online service, from banking to social networks to
email services, require passwords — all of which, to provide the most
protection, should be unique. To keep your files and other information
safe from unauthorized users, you should create a password when setting
up a new Windows 8 account. However, rather than memorizing yet another
jumble of letters and numbers, you can instead create a picture
password.
Picture passwords can be made up of a combination of taps, straight
lines and circles. To set up a picture password in Windows 8, open
Control Panel, and then click “Users.” Click “Create a Picture
Password,” and follow the onscreen directions.
6. Log in to Your Account Automatically
In contrast to picture passwords, if you’re the only one who uses
your computer and you don’t have to worry about other users logging into
your account without permission, you can configure automatic login.
Open regedit, and then navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Double-click “DefaultPassword” and enter the
password for your username. Double-click “AutoAdminLogon,” and then
change the value to “1″ to enable automatic login.
5. Mount Disc Images Without Third-Party Software
In previous editions of Windows, you had to download a third-party
application to emulate disc images. Windows 8, however, includes a
built-in tool that can mount ISO images to a virtual disc drive. To
emulate an ISO file in Windows 8, press the Windows key and “E” to open
Windows Explorer, and then navigate to the folder where the ISO file is
stored. Right-click the file and then select “Mount” from the contextual
menu.
4. Restart Explorer with the Click of a Button
Windows Explorer isn’t always the most stable process, and when the
taskbar or file manager lock up or become unresponsive, killing
explorer.exe is sometimes the easiest way to restore the operating
system to working order. In the past, you had to find Windows Explorer
in the Processes tab in Task Manager, end the task, and — on much older
editions of Microsoft Windows — even create a new explorer.exe task.
Windows 8, however, now provides a two-click solution from within Task
Manager. Simply click “Windows Explorer” from beneath the Applications
or Windows Processes section, and then click “Restart.”
3. Restore the Old Windows Desktop
If you’re a creature of habit, you’re probably not going to be a big
fan of the new Start menu. The menu now consists of just four options,
called Charms. No more is the jump list, the user folders, or the
Computer, Control Panel or Network options; Settings, Devices, Share and
Search are all of what makes up the Windows 8 Start Menu. But one quick
change to the registry can restore the classic Windows desktop. Open
Regedit, and then navigate to the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer.
Double-click RPEnabled and change the value to 0. Click “OK” to
re-enable the old Start menu.
2. Turn on the Touch Keyboard
Windows 8 features a touch keyboard, improving on the old onscreen
keyboard. The touch keyboard is ideal for tablet and slate users; it
automatically capitalizes the first letter of each sentence, adds a
period to the end of a sentence when you double-tap the spacebar, and
can toggle between different modes. To enable the touch keyboard,
right-click the taskbar, point to “Toolbars,” and then click “Touch
Keyboard.” Select the keyboard icon from the bottom right of the dock to
switch between full-screen mode, thumb mode, and pen mode.
1. Close Running Apps
If you launch an app from within Metro, you’ll notice that the
caption buttons are missing from the upper right side of the window,
preventing you from closing the application. Even worse, Alt+F4 does
nothing. Pressing the Windows key will switch you over to the Start
Screen, but the app you opened will still be running in the background.
If you switch to the Windows desktop, Windows 8 will suspend the
application, but it won’t close it. The Windows 8 development team may
change this sometime in the future, but for now, the only way to close
running apps in Windows 8 is to end the task from Task Manager. Press
“Windows” and “D” to switch over to the desktop, then press “Ctrl,”
“Shift” and “Esc” to open Task Manager. Select the app you want to
close, and then click the “End Task” button.saeed
Fire Fox Speed Up tricks
Today i am gonna show u how to speed up Mozilla Firefox to 1000000x time
lets follow the steps:
first
open fire fox and type in address bar "about:config" then press enter
then it will show little warning ,click on
i will be careful
right click anywhere the page then
click on new -->string then a window will apper write in this window "nglayout.initial.paint " then ok then put its value 00
third
right click anywhere the page then
click on new -->string then a window will apper write in this window "content.notify.delay" then ok then put its value 00
Step_3: In the filter bar below the address bar type network.http.
Step_4: Double-click on "network.http.pipelining" to change the setting from false to true.
Step_5: Double-click on "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to change the value from false to true.
Step_6: Double-click on "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" and change the number to "30". This means it will make 30 requests at once.
(Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)
Step_7: Several lines above network.http.proxy.pipelining you’ll see
"network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-proxy" and
"network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-server".
Double-click each line and change the value to "8".
Step_8: Two lines up locate and double-click on "network.http.max-connections" and set the value to "48". Step_9: Now right-click (control-click on a Mac) anywhere in the configuration (the area where you’ve been making the changes). Select "New" then "Integer".
Step_10: When prompted, copy and paste or type the following into the field provided: nglayout.initialpaint.delay.
Step_11: When prompted to add a value, enter the number "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.
Step_12: Close all windows and tabs. The changes will take effect when you restart Firefox
These changes allow Firefox to make multiple server connections and will speed up page downloads for better, more efficient use of your broadband connection. If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now...BY Saeed Khan
Vodafone HTC
Vodafone report their exclusive HTC Magic phone as âSleek, stylish & exclusive to Vodafone, the Magic is powered by leading edge know-how. So web necessities like Google Maps⢠& Google Search⢠work brilliantly. You can generate shortcuts to your favourite sites & download fun games, news feeds & widgets. Then pick where everything goes - so you can get to it all basically.â
Vodafone HTC (not so) Magic Android Smartphoneâs
Now it also seems that our friendly hackers can get to it all so basically as well. It's been reported that Panda Security has found that the HTC Magic comes infected by malware.
This was discovered by a staff member of Panda Security who had received her brand spanking new HTC Magic phone. He found that when he connected the phone to her PC by the usb hub her anti-virus alerted her to suspicious infections, detecting both an autorun.inf & autorun.exe as malicious. These turned out to be the Mariposa botnet, which loaded itself automatically to the PC when the phone was connected, the Conficker worm, & malware with a password stealer for Lineage. After checking it was found that all infections were contained on the SD card in the phone.
Vodafone wrote:
At the moment this is being inquired in to by Vodaphone, & so far there has only been this isolated case (in Germany), & in a statement from Vodafone
Following extensive Quality Assurance testing on HTC Magic handsets in several of our operating companies, early indications are that this was an isolated local incident
âVodafone takes the security & privacy of its customers seriously & launched an immediate inquiry in to this incident
Vodafone keeps its security processes under constant review as new threats arise & they will take all appropriate actions to safeguard our customersâ privacy.
As a precaution it might be wise when receiving a brand spanking new phone with a SD card or any other type of transportable memory storage to scan it with an up to date antivirus program, before using it in either phone or PC.
Even if this does turn out to be an isolated case it might plant the seed of an idea in to the mind of cyber criminals to over out something similar to this or the chip & pin machines that had malware built in to them at factoryâs in Pakistan in 2008
IP Address IP Your scientific discipline address tells primarily not where you're. therefore it's not sometimes possible to work out your position just by gazing scientific discipline address. however currently scientists have developed a way of making reasonably accurate positioning by simply gazing the scientific discipline address for each unit. It could be wont to deliver services that area unit tailored to the user's location - however it may even be wont to deliver advertisements for local outlets.
Scientists from the China University of Electronic Science and Technology in Chengdu and the U.S. Department of Northwestern University in Illinois and a scientist from Microsoft analysis, who have presented their new method in a very sensational analysis.Positionsbestemmelse is sometimes one thing occurring each consumer device - either by mistreatment Associate in Nursing integrated GPS or by probing for proverbial wireless networks near . The user can after all even enter his position. however in all these scenarios, the user management over whether the position must be determined.
The new method means the position is mechanically detected as presently as you contact an online server and therefore sends its scientific discipline address - could also be prevented by using a proxy server or otherwise blur address.
Scientists use three different steps to mend your position from scientific discipline address. in the beginning sent a knowledge packet to the device and the time it takes the packets to arrive area unit wont to calculate the device located with a coarse accuracy of 200 kilometers.
In the next step is distributed back knowledge packets - however this time for computers where physical location is understood. it's typically universities and corporations that host their own servers. Here, we know that is the address where the server says. Researchers have drawn around seventy six,000 physical addresses for servers onto Google Maps.
Scientists send packets to servers in the space where the searched device is located. Then compare the Datapak pathways. If a knowledge packet to a server with a proverbial physical address passes constant router as a knowledge packet to the device which attempts to work out the position, then compared transport time for the package.
The last step takes the system therefore out which of the proverbial computers that is closest to the searched device. It gives a fairly sensible positioning of the device. On average, the accuracy of 700 meters however in some cases is as low as 100 meters. therefore you'll eg. establish during which district the pc is located and perhaps also on the road.
It feels like a technically sophisticated process, however it can most likely be automated therefore chase only takes many seconds.
In their paper employs the researchers failed to take care of the ethical and legal implications of their technology, which after all allows you to trace all web users without their information or consent.saeed
In our canicule humans await on adaptable accessories to admission
the web, attending for altered admonition and accumulate in blow with
ancestors and friends. Thatв why it is so important to apperceive how
to behave online, how to administer your Internet reputations and how
to put your claimed assurance on the aboriginal abode if communicating
on a adaptable device.
First of all, anticipate alert fore administration a anticipation or a
picture. Anticipate about your colleagues, grandmother, or prebendary
accepting them. Are you abiding that what your administration is
acceptable for anyone to see? Then it is awful recommended to assure
your claimed data. So, if you forward something like emails, messages,
pictures or burning letters to anyone who is a trusted acquaintance
or a affiliate of your family,mobile safe never acknowledge any claimed abstracts
that may be acclimated either to amount out your concrete area or to
accomplishment you.
It is swell recommended to ascendancy negativity and anticipate alert
about who deserves to acquaint with and who A amount of
Internet casework acquiesce you to block visitors. In case you accept
accustomed any calumniating or inflictive letters on the Internet, you
should address the corruption area and if you saw it.
Another admonition is to use filters. For example, a few browsers accept
filters that advice accumulate inappropriate actual out of your seek
results. Although there are no filters in the apple that are able to
agreement you mobile safe 100% abatement of exceptionable content, they can still
accomplish a abundant aberration to befitting inappropriate actual out
of your seek results.
When it comes to downloading things, a lot
of of the troubles with aegis begin. Educated citizens will never
download software from alien and absolved sources. If you download
applications from 3rd parties, you should accomplish abiding they are
alone from developers you trust. Fore beat I agree mobile safe and
installing, apprehend their agreement of account and aloofness behavior
anxiously in adjustment to absolutely accept what permissions you are
giving the developers if downloading their software.
One added affair about aegis – not online, but on the road: never
argument while driving. Remember that you put your own activity and the
lives of others in crisis if you try to do several things, like reading,
accounting and driving, simultaneously. That’s why testing and active
is adjoin the law in abounding countries.
Finally
the arrival of the much anticipated operating system, Windows 7.
Although Vista received some of the harshest criticism in years, for
Microsoft, it was still hugely successful, with an extreme overpriced
tag, and a large range of features, it kept the fanboys happy. It's
biggest flaw, was that it consumed so much system memory, that you
needed a beastly machine just to properly run it, and even then, it
consumed so much of your RAM, that many wondered was it even worth it.
The question now remains, what can Windows 7 do for you? It brags about
extremely efficiency in running it's OS, promises to deliver some of the
most innovative features on the market today, and guarantees
satisfaction with a fair price range. Let's take a look at Windows 7
According to Microsoft, Windows 7 is "all about simplicity". Although
there have been eleven official releases of a Windows OS, this is marked
as "Windows 7", and it promises reliability. One of the first things
most of you notice about 7, is it's amazing taskbar, and how it
functions. Instead of dividing up various web browser pages for example,
a single icon appears, and by clicking it, a pop out window of the
multiple tabs or windows, then appears. Yes, Mac has done something
similar, but the look and feel to this on 7, is just unmatchable.
Again there is thumbnail previews of all of the applications that you
have running, and what they consider as a "jump list" for directly
reaching the most often used feature, of the running apps. Not only is
this extremely convenient, but it's beneficial to those whom multitask
such as myself. This is great, because for those of you like me, I have
at least seven applications constantly running, ten to twenty open web
pages or tabs, and also various programs I use nonstop.
Again, they've released multiple editions of this operating system, this
time though, it's Starter, Home Premium, Professional, and of course
the behemoth known as Ultimate. As in with Vista to experience the
majority of the features you needed Premium, this time it's recommended
you grab at least Professional, but in my earnest opinion, if you're
going to fork out the cash for Pro, you might as well grab Ultimate.
Windows 7 also brings out the new "Windows Touch", for those of you with
"touch" hardware. This would make the first operating system to fully
integrate the touch devices with all of the capabilities of the
operating system. It's pretty cool if you have the right tools to use
it, although I still prefer my "old school" mouse and keyboard, for
maximum efficiency and reduced time completing a project.
To upgrade to 7 is very easy if you're running Vista already, and your
reward for it is an extremely fast and innovative operating system. The
upgrade process takes a bit of time though, even on the fastest of
machines. I have a powerhouse machine and it was at least three hours,
and since I was asleep through the rest of the process, I cannot say the
exact length.
However, if you're still on XP, then expect a difficult upgrade. You
must first back up all your files, documents, media, and settings, using
a new tool for this called "Easy Transfer", and they recommend you do
so to an external drive. Then you must do a fresh install of 7, and of
course restore and reinstall of your apps, programs, and setting. This
can be a bit time consuming not to mention frustrating, but I can assure
you, the benefits are well worth the time. Just make sure you have a
free weekend to sit down and complete this uphill task.
Although Microsoft has claimed they will continue to provide security
updates for XP until 2014, waiting too long to grab this new operating
system only delays the inevitable. Just make sure you visit Microsoft's
website first, to make sure your machine is capable of the upgrade. It's
way more efficient than Vista could ever possibly be, so if you can run
Vista, you can run 7 with relative ease. Also in this modern digital
age, even if you forget to back up some of those drivers of utter
importance, it's not very hard to find them on the web. Unless in fact
you forgot to back up the drivers for your network card, which would be a
hassle indeed.
The Start menu itself is invigorating, and refreshing. The ease of which
you can access your favorite files is astounding. The sheer beauty of
it, and browsing through it for the first time, is an experience to
remember. I highly enjoyed just admiring the bitter sweet essence of the
Start menu. Windows 7 feels like the completion of what Vista should
have been, a deeply thought out, and user input based operating system.
Almost as if Vista was a test, to see what needed to be including, if
only that were true.
Now, where Vista could take up to fifteen minutes to boot up, and have
everything running smoothly, even on a fast PC, 7 is a huge triumph over
this. If you run a clean install, and start up 7, wow, it's has a Mac
OS X boot time, which is impressive. Shut down time as well, is also
fast compared to Vista. This is a very lightweight and jam packed
operating system indeed.
Although it has almost exactly the same hardware requirements, I've seen
people actually try to run Vista with only 512mb of RAM, although it
was highly laggy, and at times would make someone such as me who is
active and busy on the PC, want to throw my tower out the window, no pun
intended. So running 7 on a slower machine, if you had ran Vista on it,
would not be a problem what so ever. It's as if they took a mad
scientist, Vista, and Bill Gates, and zipped them into a compressed file
for three years, and this is the end result. Highly worthy of the
Windows name.
Now with 7, if you meet the "Aero" requirements, there is also a new
feature, called "Aero Peek", which allows fully translucent windows, for
those whom have thirty windows open at once. Yes in Vista you could
used "transparent" windows with Aero, but, this is fully translucent
windows, capable of an extraordinary visual experience that even the
those whom are unimpressed by art can respect. That's what the new look
or Aero is, a modern masterpiece, a work of art.
The rapid navigation of the taskbar apps, the translucent Aero features,
the innovative designs, are not all it has to offer. They now introduce
"Aero Shake", which means this, you can literally grab with the
pointer, the titlebar of a window, and shake it around, which will
minimize all of the windows you have open. This is very cool, and you'll
find yourself doing it often. So for those of you counter-intelligence
agents who have classified documents open when a co-worker walks in,
just shake the title bar, and poof, its all gone. Or for those of you
looking at multiple porn pages and the wife walks in, just shake that
title bar with one hand, and uh, hide yourself with the other.
The search function on 7 is also a innovative, where as soon as your
typing into it, results begin popping instantly, and I know search is
not new, but this search is faster, extremely faster. Mac OS X has
something similar, with Spotlight, but Mac OS X is a huge slowdown
compared to this, trust me.
Now, to your media. Windows Media Player has always been a key built in
feature of all Windows operating systems, but now, they've added a
comprehensive codec support. WMP now supports most all codecs, as well
as removing the old direct show codecs, and implementing a new
replacement, called Media Foundation. While it's a bit confusing at
first, especially if you're doing the tasks of encoding, or something
along those lines, it has a very huge potential to become something
great. Again, it's new, and it will take some time for everyone to get
used to so say the least. For those of you that must know about this
main task before making the switch, I suggest you visit HERE for a comprehensive look at Media Foundation.
Something else that is really neat is now you can directly tie your
media library in with your Windows Live ID, and pull up all your songs,
movies, and more, from any computer that has internet access. This is
great, so instead of carrying around a flash drive, or external hard
drive, you can simply sign into your Windows Live ID from a friend's
house, or your work place, and access all of your media, boom, just like
that. A smooth idea indeed for Microsoft. I think this is one more
thing to booster their battle with the new "Bing" engine and features to
compete with Google, but that's another topic.
When it comes to the Windows Explorer, it's still effective as always,
but without being able to put my finger on why it's better, I would
suggest that it's "smarter". Now while exploring your windows and
folders, you can turn on or off the "preview" pane, which shows say for
example, the album cover, or movie cover, etc. Also you can now preview
and play songs directly from within a folder, or other media files. It's
all very interesting.
Another nice trick to the explorer and preview windows, is that for
example, you can plug in a pink iPod, and when installing the drivers
and after, it will show the exact model of the phone, the exact "stock"
color of any device, and it's interesting. So it's just one more thing
for your eyes to admire, or something you can show off to your friends,
its really useless other than that, but none the less, very cool.
On to Internet Explorer. IE8 comes standard in this OS, although I would
not recommend using it. I never use Internet Explorer, for many
reasons. First major reason, is it has huge security flaws, even though
it's overly protected. What I mean by this, as some of you may know, is
IE is tied in with windows explorer, and what that means, is if for
example, you were hijacked, while using Internet Explorer, they have
access to your windows explorer, which is extremely dangerous. I avoid
IE at all costs, use FireFox, it's much faster, has many more features,
and is just all around a better browser. Even Chrome is better than IE,
hell even Safari or Opera, just stay away from IE. The only time you
should ever use IE is on a newly installed OS, to download and install
FireFox lol. Moving on.
The security aspect of 7 cannot really be determined as of yet, seeing
how it's so new. Wait a few months until hackers have had a serious go
at it, before we can determine how secure it is. Again as always, get a
good protection software or a malware app, and you should be straight.
What is nice, is that the newly included "HomeGroup" feature of
networking, allows you to easily change the security standards and
settings of each of the new "HomeGroups".
For years networking a connection between PC's has always been somewhat
of a hassle on all Windows OS's, but now, with "HomeGroup", it is
visually exciting and not at all challenging to network or link your
machines, and can be done quickly as I said with relative ease. This is a
plus for sharing files or folders, or connecting your Windows Media
Center to the Xbox 360 for example. This is all easy to setup, and
convenient with the new interface that's provided.
To compatibility with other products, such as printers, scanners, fax
machines, etc, it shouldn't be much of a problem. Since this OS was
designed amongst the Vista core, almost all of the fixes, patches, and
bugs were worked out in the later Vista service packs. So no worries on
that front. Now of course if you have a twenty year old printer, you
might have a problem, but if not, everything should be as smooth as a
baby's bottom. The Device Manager makes its return again, and it's still
easy to use.
Regardless of the complaints about Vista and how certain hardware
wouldn't work with it, that's just flat out crazy talk. Microsoft still
allows use with more hardware and drives from more vendors and companies
than any other operating system, and that's a fact. There is always
going to be more products that will work with a Windows OS than any
other operating system, and due to the relatively cheap prices for newer
devices, you shouldn't have a problem finding what you need even if
your stone-age device will not work with it.
The stability and speed of Windows 7 is what keeps it in the headlines
as much as it has, and what keeps the Mac commercials attacking it,
because they do feel threatened by it. Machines that would be almost not
usable under Vista, can become a workhorse under Windows 7. This OS has
performance, and performance is in high demand. Microsoft has reworked
the GUI scheduling which in return means that there will be far less
unresponsive times and also much more free CPU for you to work with.
If in fact you're on an older machine, and experience any slowdowns,
they've included the "Startup Repair Utility", which manages the issues
and works out the kinks, and if it cannot, it will find a restore point,
and you can go from there.
On pricing, I'm not sure whether you can purchase Starter in the stores,
or if it's just to be included on some uber cheap netbooks, but I know
that home premium has a Full Price of $199.99, and an upgrade from Vista
is $119.99. Professional, is $299.99 with an upgrade from Vista is only
$199.99. Ultimate however, is a whopping $319.99 and with an upgrade
from Vista can be found at $219.99. Or you can just download the
torrent, which I'll be linking you to at the end of my well written
review of Windows 7.
What's also interesting, is that Microsoft has said that it will
continue to offer security updates as well as Windows Updates, to even
"bootleg" copies of Windows 7. I guess they feel that in order to get
the word out, and to get the fans behind them, that it's a necessity to
have the updates and fixes available to pirates. Or maybe it's because
they'll be making so much money off of it, that they really don't care.
Either way, they're supporting "unofficial" copies of 7 with updates,
and that's a major announcement.
So overall, Windows 7 is an extreme upgrade from Vista, and even a
challenge to the performance of XP. It slaughters Mac OS X with it's
features and compatibility combined, and it's as always going to destroy
the open source operating systems. This OS has so many advantages to
previous operating systems, that if you meet the requirements for it,
there is no reason you shouldn't be using it. It feels great, looks
great, and runs great. I don't know what else you could ask for. I'm
running it on a separate partition, and wow, I am impressed. Microsoft
really did their job with this release, and it's an amazing operating
system. If you can meet the requirements and use it, you definitely
should at least check it out. Chances are you'll fall in love, I did.
Secure Password Manager
Password managers work the following way: they put userâs information in a kind of digital safe, which can be opened by the user with a single password. There's lots of services on the net to help jog your memory. In order to pick the that suits you best, you need to recognize your individual needs. In lots of cases, free products are not worse than bought ones.
Netizens know that surfing the Net takes some memory skills â at least in regards to numerous passwords. Whether an ordinary user wishes to check their emails, talk to their Facebook friends, look at their bank account on the Net or play World of Warcraft, they would need to keep in mind all their passwords to get access to the services.
Every online service requires its own password. Thatâs why lots of users decided to make use of a single password for a mass of services, which is though simple, is not safe . & here come in password managers. When they are used properly, managers can ease your worries & help you along with your bad memory. However, the user has to take time before making a choice to which service to entrust the keys to his or her whole digital life.
The managers are all different, a number of them only work on an individual PC, while the others exist on USB sticks, so that the users could have the access to codes anywhere. Meanwhile, Net browsers also offer some assistance in this regard by constantly asking if input information ought to be recalled or not. For example, Firefox depends on a master password, without which it saves information in an unencrypted form.
A variety of other services place the key to the userâs digital codes in to the cloud, which means that it is located on their own servers. Actually, this is convenient, because the user can access the key from any PC with Net connection. However, the hacking groups like Anonymous & LulzSec have proved that lots of of these services are not adequately protected.
Irrespective of the service you pick, the key is the encryption. In other words, in the event you save all of your passwords to different digital needs in place, you need to come up with a secure password, containing at least 8 (preferably 12) characters having a combination of letters, numbers & special characters. However, the common weak point of the programs is that they notify attackers of incorrectly entered a master password, as they donât permit access to private information. Only a number of the managers always provide all passwords â either actual or false, depending on whether the master password was true or false
Facebook Running Aggressive and Confusing Censorship
After
Facebook finally managed to solve the bug leading to ban of the word
“Palestinian” from page titles, it suddenly appeared to be not their
only trouble. The news is that now people can’t use the last name "Arab"
for opening accounts, because the system prevents them from doing so.
Recently, Professor Brynen from the Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet made
an attempt to create a Facebook page for his group. Surprisingly, he
found himself unable to do so, because the system prevented him from it
by a rogue moderating process banning the word "Palestinian" from being
used in page titles. After being notified about the trouble, Facebook
fixed it and even apologized to Rex Brynen, explaining that they use an
automated system, which is designed in such a way that it checks for
inaccurate registration names. It happened so that for a short period of
time, that system was inadvertently applied to Page creation names as
well. Facebook moved to fix the bug immediately after getting an alert
to this. It’s working properly now and the service apologized for
inconveniences it has caused.
However, recently it happened that Facebook's troubles with Arabic names
didn't end over there. Facebook's user faced the similar problem when
tried to change her account to her married name – "Arab," which is
actually a very common Palestinian last name. After the first attempt
the service prevented her from doing so.
The interesting thing is that her husband did succeed in using his real
last name back in 2007, when signing up for Facebook for the first time.
However, after he changed his last name to Arabic script just for fun
some time ago, he found himself unable to change it back to the Roman
alphabet later. The couple’s family members have tried to sign up for
the service and faced the same trouble. Those who try to set up dummy
accounts using "Arab" for the last name also ran into exactly the same
problem.
Most probably, the nature of the problem is the same as that of the word
"Palestinian" – the reason is overzealous automated system. In spite of
the fact that Facebook does have a record of passive-aggressive
censorship, it can hardly be imagined to be involved in the business of
preventing prospective consumers from registering. However, Arab family
emailed Facebook a number of times, and still hasn’t got any response.
Of course, it wouldn’t be difficult for the company to fix this problem
too, but it shouldn't have been a trouble in the first place.
Researchers
have set a new 2-way network data transfer rate record of 186 Gbps in
order to help work through tons of information spewing out of the Large
Hadron Collider.
The
researchers at Caltech, University of Michigan, and others have recently
cooperated to push the limits of the amount of data that could be
transferred in a wide area network. Today the computer experts
acknowledge that very large quantities of data are able to be crammed
down optical fibres and sent throughout the globe from continent to
continent. The speeds in question are apparently equivalent to moving
2,000,000 Gb per day.
Now they expect that new networks could be constructed in order to use
the technology in the next few years, most likely within the range of 40
to 100 Gbps. The 2-way connection, both ways reaching 88 Gbps to make
up for a combined 186 Gpbs, sent information from ten Dell servers from
British Columbia and Seattle through an optical network. This broke the
earlier record, set by the same team, which was 119 Gbps two years ago.
Moreover, the researchers decided to show the globe spanning potential
of the high speed information network, and that’s why data was also sent
to some institutes located in Brazil and Korea.
This network will be very helpful in work through the staggering amount
of information derived from the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN
facility, where the scientists are now trying to work through
information that has indicated the presence of the Higgs boson.
Thus far, over 100 petabytes of data has been processed. This is really
an outstanding amount of information, which could be compared to a
Blockbusters-beating 100,000,000 Blu-ray disks. Meanwhile, the
researchers believe that it’s only the start, because experts of the
Large Hadron Collider will smash even more particles together.
At the moment, it is expected that the experts in laboratories all over
the globe will be able to get their hands on information in order to
solve mysteries of the universe rather than having to watch a download
bar run as swiftly as an MP3 on a slow dial-up connection. Everything
becomes easy our days, and petascale particle physics information can
now be transferred to any corner of the world in merely a couple of
hours.
I’ve been having some intermittent DNS resolution failures on my
recent installation of Ubuntu 12.04. Googling showed that I’m not the
only one, and the solution found here seems to be working for me:
view sourceprint?
1.sudovi/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
Then comment out (by prepending a #) the line dns=dnsmasq. Finally:
From
time to time I’m working with new recruits and bringing them up to
speed in operations. The first thing I emphasize is care with
destructive commands.
What do I mean here? Well there are all
sorts of them. SQL commands such as DROP table & DROP database.
But also TRUNCATE and DELETE are all destructive. They’re easy to
execute but harder to undo. Think of all the steps it would take to
restore from your backup.
If you are logged in as root there are
many many ways to shoot your own foot. I hope you know this right? rm
has lots of options that can be very difficult to step back from like -r
(recursive) and -f (force). Better to not use the command at all and
just move the file or directory you’re working on by renaming it. You
can always delete later.
2. Set your command prompts
When
working on the command line, your prompt is crucial. You check it over
and over to make sure you’re working on the right box. At the OS, your
prompt can tell you if you’re root or not, what directory you’re
sitting in, and what’s the hostname of the box. With a few different
terminals open, it’s very easy to execute a heavy loading command or
destructive command on the wrong box. Check thrice, cut once!
You
can also set your mysql prompt too. This can provide similar
insurance. It can tell you the database schema you’re set at default,
and the user you’re logged in as. Hostname or localhost too. It is one
more piece in the risk aversion puzzle.
3. Perform backups & test them
I
know I know, we’re all doing backups already. Well I sure hope so.
But if you’re getting on a system for the first time, it should be your
very initial impulse to check and find out what types of backups are
being done. If they’re not, you should set them up. I don’t care how
big the database is. If it’s an obstacle, you need to sell or educate
management on what might happen if. Paint some ugly scenarios. It’s
not always easy to see urgency in these things without a good war story
or two.
We wrote a guide to using xtrabackup for hotbackups. These can be done online even while your production database is serving customers without table locking or other downtime.
4. Stay off production machines
This
may sound funny to some of you, but I live by it. If it ain’t broke,
don’t go and try to fix it! You don’t need to be on all these boxes all
the time. That goes for other folks too. Don’t give devs access to
every production box. Too many hands in the pie so to speak. Also
limit root users. But again if those systems are running well, you
don’t have to login to them and poke around every five minutes. This
just brings more chances for operator error.
5. Avoid change as much as possible
This one might sound controversial but it’s saved me more than once.
I
worked at one firm a few years back managing the MySQL servers. The
Oracle DBA was going on vacation for a few weeks so I was picking up the
reigns for a bit. I met with the DBA for some brain dump sessions, and
he outlined the main things that can and do go wrong. He also asked
that I avoid any table alterations.
Sure enough ten days into his
vacation, a problem arose in the application. One page on the site was
failing silently. There was a missing field which needed to be added. I
resisted. A fight ensued. Suddenly a lot of money was at stake if
this change wasn’t pushed through. I continued to resist. I explained
that if such a change were not done correctly, it very likely would
break replication, pushing a domino of other things to break and causing
an unpredictable mess.
I also knew I only had to hold on for a
few more days. The resident dba would be returning and he could juggle
the change. You see Oracle was setup to use multi-master replication
those changes needed to go through a rather complex process to be
applied. Done incorrectly the damage would have taken days to cleanup
and caused much more financial damage.
The DBA was very thankful
at my resistance and management somewhat magically found a solution to
the application & edit problem.
Push back is very important sometimes. Many
of these ten tips are great characteristics to select for in the DBA
hiring process. If you’re a candidate, emphasize your caution and track
record with uptime. If you’re a manager, ask candidates about how they
handle these situations. We wrote a MySQL DBA hiring guide too.
6. Monitor important things
You
should monitor your OS syslog and MySQL error log for starters. But
also your slow query log for new activity, analyze them and send the
reports along to devs. Provide analysis. Monitor your partitions. You
don’t ever want disks to fill up. Monitor load average, and have a
check that the database login or some other simple transaction can
succeed. You can even monitor your backups to make sure they complete
without error. Use your judgement to decide what checks satisfy these
requirements.
7. Use one or more slaves & checksum
MySQL
slave databases are a great way to provide insurance. You can use a
lagging slave to provide insurance against operator error, or one of
those destructive commands we mentioned above. Have it lag a few hours
behind so you’ll have that much insurance. At night this slave may be
fresh enough to use for backups.
Also since mysql uses statement
based replication, data can get out of sync over time. Those problems
may or may not flag errors. So use a tool to compare your master and
slave for data consistency. We wrote a howto on using checksums to do just that.
8. Be very careful of automatic failover
Automation
is wonderful when it works. We dream of a data center that works like
clockwork, with robots that never sleep. We can work towards this
ideal, and in some cases get close. But it’s important to also
understand that failure is by nature *not* what we predicted. The
myriad ways that complex systems can fail boggles the mind, and
surprises even seasoned veterans of operations. So maintain a heathy
suspicion of this type of automation. Understand that if you automate
things to happen in this crucial time, you can potentially put yourself
in an even *more* compromised position than simply failing.
Sometimes monitoring, alerting, and manual intervention are the more prudent path. Your mileage may vary of course.
9. Be paranoid
It
takes many years of doing ops to realize you can never be paranoid
enough. Already checked that you’re on the right host, and about to
execute some command? Quit the shell prompt and check again. Go back
and ask the team if that table really needs to be dropped. Try to
rephrase what you’re about to do in different words. Email out again to
the team and wait some time before you pull the trigger. Check one
more time that you have a fresh backup.
Delay that destructive command as long as you possibly can.
10. Keep it simple
I
know I know, we all want to use that new command or tool, or jump on
the latest hardware and take it for a spin. We want to build beautiful
architectures that perform great feats of magic. But the fewer moving
parts, the less things that can go wrong. And in ops, your job is
stability and availability. Can you avoid using multi-master
replication and go with just basic master-slave replication in MySQL?
That’s simpler. Can you have fewer schemas or fewer filter rules? Can
you skip the complicated HA layer, and use monitoring and manual
failover?
Apps on Facebook can be great, but they may even be a right pain in the neck. On hand, theres useful apps like Spotify or Last.fm which make it simple to share your music taste along with your friends. Mostly these are welcomed & vaguely fascinating for the friends to view. On the other hand, theres annoying games & spammy viral apps that post things on your timeline.
There's several ways to tidy up the apps youre using & make sure your privacy settings for apps are set right. There's also some simple ways to remove & document applications when necessary like when you've accidentally clicked on a viral scam app. Heres what you require to know.
Creating an Apps
it would be great if we all had the time, skills, and patience to
learn computer coding, especially since technology pervades so many
areas of our life. But thankfully, there are applications and web
developers out there who provide ways for the rest of us to produce apps
with little or no coding skills.
Back in June, I reviewed one such web application called Buzztouch,
which is designed to allow anyone to create their own smartphone
application. Now a similar program has just been released called Infinite Monkeys,
a web-based tool geared toward niche communities who want to share
content on the iPhone and Android platforms. Infinite Monkeys is not as
polished theme wise as Buzztouch, but unlike the latter, Infinite
Monkeys, says the developers, “Is completely web-based, and works on any
computer or tablet device. You never touch the source code and don’t
have to know what it is or how it works.” There are several other
differences that also might make Infinite Monkey more accessible to
non-programmers than Buzztouch. But you’re free to explore both and see
which fits your needs.
Web-based GUI
Infinite Monkeys’ web-based graphic user interface allows users to
incorporate existing web content from social networking sites like
Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and blogging sites.
These web-based apps of course don’t compare to more advanced apps like Angry Birds,
but they are great for small niche communities and businesses, such as
school associations, sports teams, churches, musicians and restaurants,
who want to share content privately or publicly.
Infinite Monkeys provides three different app platform models,
ranging from free to the pro level version of $499. But for many users,
the free HTML 5 web-based, and ad-supported model should suffice.
Building An App
Infinite Monkey provides a seriously easy step-by-step process for
creating a smartphone app in less than an hour; that is if you have an
ample amount of content already posted on the web.
The great thing about using a web-based platform is that you can
constantly add content and updates to your app via your blog site,
YouTube channel, photo sharing site, etc.
The Infinite Monkey web application uses a familiar drag-and-drop
process. You start off by giving your app a title, followed by choosing a
privacy setting. You can make the app public, or private for closed
community access which will prompt users to enter a password to view
content.
You can of course customize the background image and splash screen, as well as the font colors for the title and other text.
Core Content
The core content of your app consists of primarily news and third-party feeds such as your blog site(s) and specific URLs.
Infinite Monkeys includes additional content models for music and
books, food and beverages, events, sports, reference materials, and
location services such as a map and directions.
With the click of a button you can easily preview your app at any
point in the development process. The online app also includes an
embedded short video tutorial for each of the three part steps and
multifunction tools.
You have poor control over the content of your app, including links
to streaming videos, live chatrooms, shared calendars for upcoming
events, shopping links to recommended products, and tap–t0–call phone
contact information.
Publishing App
The free version of Infinite Monkeys allows you to instantly post
your HTML 5 version immediately to the web so that anyone with a
web-enabled smartphone can access it through the assigned URL.
Since your app is ad-supported, Infinite Monkeys will host it for
free on their server. While it is not nearly as polished as professional
apps that you will find in say the iTunes App Store, it does provide a
way for anyone to get their content into this space.
Don't despair,
though, help is at hand. We've been investigating every part of Windows 8
Consumer Preview, uncovering many of its most important tips and
tricks, so read our guide and you'll soon be equipped to get the most
out of Microsoft's latest release.
1. Lock screen
Windows 8 opens on its lock screen, which looks pretty but unfortunately displays no clues about what to do next.
It's
all very straightforward, though. Just tap the space bar, spin the
mouse wheel or swipe upwards on a touch screen to reveal a regular login
screen with the user name you created during installation. Enter your
password to begin.
2. Basic navigation
Windows 8 launches
with its new Metro interface, all colourful tiles and touch-friendly
apps. And if you're using a tablet then it'll all be very
straightforward: just swipe left or right to scroll the screen, and tap
any tile of interest.
On a regular desktop, though, you might alternatively spin the mouse wheel to scroll backwards and forwards.
And
you can also use the keyboard. Press the Home or End keys to jump from
one end of your Start screen to the other, for instance, then use the
cursor keys to select a particular tile, tapping Enter to select it.
Press the Windows key to return to the Metro screen; right-click (or
swipe down on) apps you don't need and select Unpin to remove them; and
drag and drop the other tiles around to organise them as you like.
Window 8 7Tips Tricks
3. App groups
The
Start screen apps are initially displayed in a fairly random order, but
if you'd prefer a more organised life then it's easy to sort them into
custom groups.
You might drag People, Mail, Messaging and Calendar
over to the left-hand side, for instance, to form a separate "People"
group. Click the magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the
screen to carry out a "semantic zoom", and you'll now find you can drag
and drop the new group (or any of the others) around as a block.
Right-click
within the block (while still in the semantic zoom view) and you'll
also be able to give the group a name, which - if you go on to add
another 20 or 30 apps to your Start screen - will make it much easier to
find the tools you need.
Window 8 7Tips Tricks
4. Simplified Start menu?
The
Windows 8 Developer Preview had a very basic Start menu which you could
access by swiping from the right side of a touch screen, or moving the
mouse cursor to the bottom left corner of the screen. This has changed a
little in the Consumer Preview: now you need to right-click in the
bottom left corner (or hold down the Windows key and press X) for a
text-based menu which provides easy access to lots of useful applets and
features: Device Manager, Control Panel, Explorer, the Search dialog
and more.
Add caption
5. Find your applications
The
Win+X menu is useful, but no substitute for the old Start menu as it
doesn't provide access to your applications. To find this, hold down the
Windows key and press Q (or right-click an empty part of the Start
screen and select All Apps) to reveal a scrolling list of all your
installed applications. Browse the various tiles to find what you need
and click the relevant app to launch it.
Window 8 7Tips Tricks
6. Easy access
If
there's an application you use all the time then you don't have to
access it via the search system, of course. Pin it to the Start screen
and it'll be available at a click.
Start by typing part of the
name of your application. Windows 8 Consumer Preview makes it more
difficult to access Control Panel, for instance, so type Control.
Right-click the "Control Panel" tile on the Apps Search screen, and click "Pin to Start".
Now
press the Windows key, scroll to the right and you'll see the Control
Panel tile at the far end. Drag and drop this over to the left somewhere
if you'd like it more easily accessible, then click the tile to open
the desktop along with the Control Panel window, and press the Windows
key to return you to the Start screen when you've done.
7. Shutting down
You've
finished your first Windows 8 session, and would like to close your
system down - but with no Start menu it's not exactly obvious how this
can be done.
It's easy enough when you know the secret, though.
Just move the mouse cursor to the bottom right corner of the screen,
click the Settings icon - or just hold down the Windows key and press I -
and you'll see a power button. Click this and choose "Shut down" or
"Restart".
Some of the tricks available in previous versions of
Windows still apply. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del, for instance, click the power
button in the bottom right-hand corner and you'll be presented with the
same "Shut down" and "Restart" options.
And if you're on the desktop, press Alt+F4 and you'll be able to choose Shut Down, Restart, Sign Out or Switch User options.saeed
Linux Mint is one of the top free operating systems widely used in the world and currently receives the highest hits at DistroWatch.
Even though it's an Ubuntu-based system, Linux Mint features only one
panel at the bottom which looks closer to the taskbar in the Windows
system, and a well-organized start menu complete with a useful Search
box. It
also pre-installs some proprietary software, including the Adobe Flash
plugin and necessary media codecs, by default so that you can view
streaming media, such as YouTube videos in a browser, and play mp3, mp4
or most other media files with a player right away out of the box.
The MATE Edition of Linux Mint 13 Maya uses MATE,
a traditional desktop environment which continues to develop as a fork
of GNOME 2. If you have this Edition installed in your PC, you might
find these tips and tricks useful for working with the system.
Pin Programs to the Panel
Frequently used programs can be easily pinned to the panel.
Browse to a program from Menu > Applications.
Drag and drop the program to an empty space in the panel, or right-click the program and select "Add to panel".
Right click the program icon, select "Move" and drop it to a new place in the panel.
Right click the program icon and select "Lock to Panel".
Set Fully Transparent Panel
When you set the panel to be transparent in the default Mint-X theme,
you will find that some panel items' backgrounds are not transparent,
but you can opt for one of the other themes which come with the
transparent background for the panel items. If you prefer the default
theme with the items' backgrounds transparent, some tweaks are needed
with the steps below:
Click Menu and select Terminal.
Enter cp -R /usr/share/themes/Mint-X ~/.themes/
Enter pluma ~/.themes/Mint-X/gtk-2.0/Apps/panel.rc to open the file with the default text editor.
Search for two instances of "Panel/panelbg.png"
Comment out the two lines by placing a # at the beginning of the lines, for example: # bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = ...
Save the file.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Appearance, switch to the other theme and then back to the Mint-X theme.
Set Preferences for the Mint Menu
Like the Windows' Start button, Linux Mint has an advanced Gnome menu
called "mintMenu" where you can start doing things like running a
program, looking for files, log out or quit the system and so on.
This menu allows you to set your personal preferences with the steps below, for example:
Right click "Menu", select "Preferences".
In the "Main button" tab, remove the word "Menu" from the "Button text" box if you like to hide the text.
Change the keyboard shortcut from <Control>Super_L to others, such as Super_R, if you'd like to just press the right Windows key to get to the menu.
Change the Button icon from /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintMenu/visualisation-logo.png to /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintMenu/mintMenu.png, as shown in the screenshot
Other preferences can also be set in the Options, Theme, Applications and Favorites tabs.
Add a Program Shortcut from the Mint Menu
Quite often a shortcut is automatically added to the Menu when you
install an application. But you might also download a program which
requires you to manually add a shortcut for it to run from the Menu.
This can be done without breaking a sweat.
Right-click the Mint Menu and select "Edit menu".
Click a software category for example Sound & Video under Applications.
At the right panel, click "+New Item".
Type in a name for the application, for example, ClipGrab.
To the right of "Command", browse to the application where you've downloaded, for example, /home/username/Downloads/clipgrab-3.2.0.9
Click OK and Close buttons.
Note: If an executable file is not accessible, try to add permission
to execute the file in the Terminal, for this example assuming the file
is extracted to the "Downloads" folder:
cd ~/Downloads
chmod +x clipgrab-3.2.0.9
Enable Superbar
In
Windows 7, frequently used programs can be pinned to the taskbar (hence
called Superbar). Likewise, DockBarX, a new applet can now be added to
the MATE panel of Linux Mint to achieve almost the same effect to pin
and unpin or launch the applications from the panel.
Go to this page to download the Debian package for DockBarX.
Double-click the downloaded file to install.
Log out and log back into the system, then right click the panel and click “Add to Panel”.
Select the DockBarX Applet and click "Add".
When you run an application in the next log-in session, an icon will
appear in the DockBarX on the panel. You can then right-click the icon
to pin the application to the DockBarX or vice versa.
Change Font Type and Color of Panel Clock
The font type and color of the panel clock follow the windows text in
a theme by default. In particular, if the font color is black and shown
on a dark background through a transparent panel, you can't read the
clock clearly, but you can tweak it by changing the font color. And you
can define the font type for your panel clock as well.
The code in Step 1 below sets the font color to white and applies Digital Face font (Note 1), bold and size 16.
Open up the text editor Pluma and paste the following code: style "my-panel-clock"
{
fg[NORMAL] = "#FFFFFF"
font_name = "digital-7 bold 16"
}
widget "*.clock-applet-button.*" style "my-panel-clock"
Save the file as .gtkrc-2.0
Log out and log back in (OR enter killall mate-panel into the Terminal) to see the change.
Note 1: The Digital Face font can be downloaded here. After downloading, unzip the file, enter sudo mv digital-7.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype into Terminal to move the font file to the restricted folder. See also Install Extra Fonts. Note 2: The filename leading by a dot represents it's a hidden file and visible by toggling the key Ctrl-H in the file browser.
Roll Up and Down a Window
When
you double-click the title bar of a window, the default setting is to
maximize a window. Since there's already a maximize button you can use
for this, I always like to change the default setting to rolling up a
window when I double-click on its title bar.
Go to Menu > Control Center > Personal
Click "Windows" to open up "Window Preferences".
In "Titlebar Action", select "Roll up" (or "Shade") from the drop-down list.
Now you can roll up a window when you double-click its title bar, and
roll it down by double-clicking the title bar again. Simple as that.
Customize a Theme
Linux Mint is using the Mint-X as the default theme, but you can
either select another theme or customize it to suit your preferences
easily.
Go to Menu > Applications > Perferences > Appearance
Select the other theme, for instance Mint-Z, and your window will reflect the changes to the new theme.
Click the "Customize" button.
Select one of the tabs, such as Icons.
Choose one of the icon packages, for example, MATE, and click the "Close" button.
Now it becomes your Custom theme and you can save it as a new theme, such as "Mint-Z with MATE Icons".
Hide Drive Icons on the Desktop
In addition to the Computer and Home icons, Linux Mint adds an icon
to the desktop for every removable drive that you attach to your system.
The icons can be hidden by these steps:
Go to Menu > Preferences > Desktop Settings
Untick Computer, Home and Mounted Volumes, then close the window.
The drive icons as well as Computer and Home icons will then
disappear from the desktop. Remember that you can always access the
drives from Menu > Places.
Set a Default View in File Browser
Windows Explorer allows for users to set a default view to all
folders. In almost the same way, Linux Mint's Caja File Browser allows
for these settings:
Go to Menu > System Tools > File Browser.
At the top of the File Browser, click "Edit" and "Preference".
Under Default View, change "Icon View" to "List View", which lists more details in columns.
Tick "Show hidden and backup files" if that's your choice.
Other various settings, such as single or double click to open items,
icon captions, list columns, preview files and media handling can be
done in the same window as well.
Change a Folder Icon
When running a Caja file browser, you will see that the folder icons
are predetermined by the theme you set. If you wish to change a folder
icon to another for it to stand out from the system-wide icons, follow
these steps:
Go to Menu > System Tools > File Browser, right click a folder icon, select Properties.
Under the Basic tab, click the icon image to open up the "Select Custom Icon" window.
In the Location field, type /usr/share/icons, press Enter. (You can hide or unhide the Location field by clicking the Edit button on the top-left of the window.)
Browse and select an icon you want.
Click the Open button on the bottom-right of the window to confirm.
Note: You can change your custom folder icon back to the default by
clicking the "Revert" button in the "Select Custom Icon" window at Step 2
above.
Create an Advanced File Browser
In the Mint file system, you can use Caja file browser to browse most files but can only write files in your home folder /home/your_name
and its sub-folders such as Desktop and Documents. If you have to
rename a folder or write files outside of your home folder using the
file browser, you won't be able to but you can create an advanced file
browser for this purpose.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Main Menu
Select "Accessories" in the left panel and click "New Item" in the right panel.
Enter a name such as Advanced File Browser in the "Name" box.
Enter gksu caja in the "Command" field.
Click the "OK" button and the "Close" button.
Now you can go to Menu > Applications > Accessories and see
that the Advanced File Browser is ready for use. But be careful since
you can use it to delete or change any files on your system.
Add or Change Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are preset in the system, but you can add new ones
or change them easily. For instance, the keyboard shortcut to the
Terminal is disabled by default and you can change it to Ctrl+Alt+T
which is common in Linux system.
Go To System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts
Browse to Desktop > "Run a terminal"
Click on the Shortcut, and it shows "New shortcut..."
Press Ctrl+Alt+T, and it shows Ctrl+Alt+T
Click the Close button and try the new shortcut.
Note 1: To disable a shortcut, press Backspace when it shows "New shortcut..." after the step 3 above. Note 2: Shortcuts begin with XF86 refer to special keys available to some multimedia keyboards. Note 3: Keyboard shortcuts can also be set by changing keybinding values with Configuration Editor. Press Alt+F2 and enter metaconf-editor,
then navigate to apps > meta_settings_daemon > keybindings, or
apps > marco > global_keybindings and window_keybindings.
Terminate Unresponsive Programs
Xkill is part of the X11 utilities pre-installed in Linux Mint and a
tool for terminating misbehaving X clients or unresponsive programs. You
can easily add a shortcut key to launch xkill with the steps below.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts.
Click the Add button to create a custom shortcut.
Enter xkill to both the Name and Command boxes and click the Apply button.
Click on Disabled at the xkill row in the Keyboard Shortcuts window
Press a new key combination, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+X (New shortcut... is then changed to Ctrl+Alt+X).
Click the Close button.
Xkill is ready for use. Press the above key combination to turn the
cursor to an X-sign, move the X-sign and drop it into a program
interface to terminate the unresponsive program, or cancel the X-sign
with a right-click. Note: As an alternative, you can right-click the panel,
select "Add to panel", then choose "Force Quit" to add to the panel.
This works similarly to the above but it's activated from a button on
the panel instead of the keyboard shortcut.
Re-start System without Rebooting
If you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, Linux Mint brings you a menu to shut
down, restart, or suspend your system. But for some reason you might
encounter that the system freezes, the mouse cursor can't move, neither
pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete can work.
Remember that there's a shortcut key Alt+PrintScreen+K that can bring
you back to the log-in screen immediately without the need to reboot
the system. That's a time saver.
As an alternative, you can also use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to do the
same. If this shortcut key is disabled, you can easily enable it by the
following steps:
Go to Menu > Preferences > Keyboard.
Select the “Layouts” tab and click the “Options” button.
Select “Key sequence to kill the X server” and enable “Control + Alt + Backspace”.
Set Sound Preferences
If you use a PC with an integrated audio device and it has no sound
when playing a media file on a player, try these simple steps to set
Sound Preferences for your PC. It works for me for the audio device I
have.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Sound to bring up the Sound Preferences window.
Under the Hardware tab, change Profile to Analog Stereo Duplex from the drop-down menu.
Click "Test Speakers" to check if it works.
As the items available from the drop-down menus might differ
depending on the hardware devices detected by the system, you might want
to try other items in the menus to see if they work for your devices.
Change or Disable Login Sound
Each time when you login to Linux Mint, it plays a login sound. If
you don't like to listen to it each time you login, you can easily
disable it, or change it to your favorite sound.
Go to Menu > Administration > Login Window.
Under the "Accessibility" tab, change to a sound you like from the
drop-down menu for "Login successful", click "Play" to try the sound if
needed.
If you want to disable the log-in sound, untick "Login successful"
Log out and log back in to check the new setting for login sound.
Similarly you can try out sounds for "Login screen ready" and "Login
failed".
Install Extra Fonts
Do you prefer Windows TrueType fonts to the default fonts installed by Linux Mint? The mscorefonts package containing most Microsoft fonts can be installed and configured easily in a few steps below:
Go to Menu > Terminal.
Paste sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer into the Terminal (by pressing Ctrl-Shift-V in the Terminal after copying the highlighted code).
When prompted, use the arrow left/right keys to navigate and agree to the EULA license terms for the install.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts.
Click each of them, pick a font and size to configure for window title and so on.
How about installing more TrueType fonts? With your font files, you
can manually add them into the system following the steps below:
Press Alt+F2 to bring up "Run Application" window.
Paste gksu caja /usr/share/fonts/truetype into the box, click "Run" to open Caja File Browser in the right folder.
Create a new sub-folder and copy your files ending with .ttf into the sub-folder.
Enter sudo fc-cache -f -v in the Terminal to rebuild the font information.
Besides this, you can run an application such as Font-Manager to view, install, remove fonts and so on. Note: If you like the Tahoma font which is not included in the mscorefonts package, you might want to copy the two files tahoma.ttf and tahomabd.ttf from /Windows/Fonts and install them.
Install Screenlets
Screenlets are small applications to represent things such as sticky
notes, clocks, calendars around on your desktop. You can launch a
pre-installed screenlet from Screenlet Manager, or install a new one
into the Manager for launching it. Here are the steps for installing and
launching a screenlet, for example, WaterMark System Information.
Install Screenlets Manager if it has not been added.
Go to Menu > Software Manager.
Enter screenlets into the Search Box.
Double-click Screenlets, then click the "Install" button.
Download the screenlet "WaterMark System Information" to a folder.
Go to Menu > Applications > Accessories > Screenlets.
Click Install, select Install Screenlet and click OK.
Browse to the folder, select the file downloaded and click "Open" to install the screenlet into the Screenlets Manager.
Select the screenlet "WaterMark" and click "Launch/Add".
More screenlets are available for installation from screenlets.org.
Install Oracle Java Packages
Linux Mint uses OpenJDK by default, but some web services might need
the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to be installed for running
the services properly. If you would like to get the proprietary Oracle
Java package for your system, you can download and install it with the
steps below:
Go to Menu > Terminal.
Enter sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java to add the partner repository.
Enter sudo apt-get update to update the source list.
Enter sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer
At any time, you can check the Java version you're using and configure it when necessary:
Enter sudo java -version to check the version of the Java used in the system.
Enter sudo update-alternatives --config java to choose the default Java for use in the system.
Install Apps from Ubuntu Apps Directory
The Ubuntu Apps Directory is one of the good sources to look for applications to run in Linux Mint system. On a web page listing a product such as K3b,
you can click a download button, in which the APT protocol is applied
to invoke the default package manager to download and install software
for you, right from a web browser and pretty straightforward.
This works well when you're using Firefox which allows you to choose
"AptUrl" to handle the protocol. But when you're using Chrome, clicking
the download button triggers "xdg-open" which is unable to detect the
MATE desktop environment.
With some tweaks below, you can then use Chrome to download software from the Ubuntu Apps Directory.
Go to Menu > Terminal
Enter gksu pluma /usr/bin/xdg-open
Search for detectDE(), then above this line else DE="", insert a new line:
elif [ x"$MATE_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID" != x"" ]; then DE=mate;
Search for open_gnome(), then after the section of open_gnome() {...}, insert a new section:
open_mate()
{
if gvfs-open --help 2>/dev/null 1>&2; then
gvfs-open "$1"
else
mate-open "$1"
fi
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
exit_success
else
exit_failure_operation_failed
fi
}
Search for this line case "$DE" in, and after this line, add a new section:
mate)
open_mate "$url"
;;
Save the file and retry the download links.
Add More Useful Software
Linux Mint's Software Manager lets you search and get free software,
or straight from the Menu, you can type an application name into the
Search box to see if the software has been installed and ready for use.
If the software has not been installed, you can click "Install" when a
software package is shown in the search result. What's more, you can
also go to Menu > Package Manager, type in an application name to
search and install a software package from the repositories.
Besides this, you can browse the Ubuntu Apps Directory to find software products you need as mentioned in the tip above.
Alternatively, you can get the latest freeware applications by clicking the Install this now button from the GetDeb Repository after the getdeb package is installed with the instructions given.
See also our Best Free Software for Linux.
Auto Mount Drives at System Startup
Linux Mint is capable of reading and writing files stored on Windows
formatted partitions, but partitions must be 'mounted' before they can
be accessed each time you start up the system. With these steps, you can
auto mount the drives or partitions without the need to manually mount
them for access.
Go to Menu > Software Manager, type pysdm into the Search box and press "Enter".
Select "pysdm" and click "Install" if it has not been installed.
Go to Menu > Applications > Administration > Storage Device Manager.
Extend the list of sda and select the sda you want to auto mount, click 'OK' to configure.
Click the "Assistant" button.
Uncheck "Mount file system in read only mode" and keep "The file system is mounted at boot time" checked.
Click the "Mount", "Apply" then "Close" button, and restart the system.
In case you wish to remove the auto-mount of a certain drive or
partition, you can similarly use Storage Device Manager to do the
setting. Note: If you need to identify disk partitions by label, paste ls /dev/disk/by-label -g in Terminal, or to view partition sizes and file systems, enter sudo fdisk -l. Disk Utility mentioned in "Name or Label a Partition" also gives you a glance of device numbers, partition types, sizes and labels.
Manually Mount a USB Drive
A USB storage device plugged into the system usually mounts
automatically, but if for some reasons it doesn't automount, it's
possible to manually mount it with these steps.
Go to Menu > Terminal.
Enter sudo mkdir /media/usb to create a mount point called usb.
Enter sudo fdisk -l to look for the USB drive already plugged in, let's say the drive you want to mount is /dev/sdb1.
Enter sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/usb -o uid=1000,gid=100,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137 to mount a USB drive formatted with FAT16 or FAT32 system. OR:
Enter sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/usb to mount a USB drive formatted with NTFS system.
To unmount it, just enter sudo umount /media/usb in the Terminal.
Name or Label a Partition
The File Browser shows the root directory as File System for your Mint system partition. If you have other partitions (or volumes), it shows them as xx GB Filesystem if they’re not named or labelled.
Using Disk Utility is one of the effective ways to name a partition easily:
Install Disk Utility if it has not been added.
Go to Menu > Software Manager.
Enter gnome-disk-utility into the Search Box.
Select gnome-disk-utility, click the "Install" button.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Disk Utility
Select the item Hard Disk.
In the Volumes section, click a partition you want to label.
Click "Edit Filesystem Label" (Note 1)
In the Label box, enter a name, e.g. Data-Disk, and click Apply.
The File Browser should now show the partition label, such as Data-Disk, instead of xx GB Filesystem. Note 1: If the option for "Edit Filesystem Label" is not
shown, click "Unmount Volume" before hand. In case you can't unmount a
volume, try Storage Device Manager to unmount it. See Auto Mount Drives at System Startup. Note 2: This tip is for naming a partition using Disk
Utility, use other advanced features such as format, edit or delete
partition with caution as they can delete data on your disk.
Auto Start Up an Application
In Windows, you can place a program shortcut in a startup folder for
running a program automatically when the system starts. In Linux Mint,
you can do the same in this way:
Go To Menu > Applications > Preferences > Startup Applications
Click the "Add" button.
Name a program.
Click the "Browse" button and navigate to File System > usr > bin, where programs are usually installed.
Select a program, click the "Open" button followed by the "Add" button.
The above program will then be listed in additional startup programs.
Check if the program runs automatically by logging out and back to the
system.
Change a Login Screen and Theme
Linux Mint offers you a Mint Display Manager (MDM) to configure a
login session. You can use it to change a login screen or a theme you
like in a few steps:
Go to Menu > Administration > "Login Window" to open this window "Login Window Preferences".
Under the "Local" tab, select a built-in theme such as "Circles", then log out and back in to try a new log-in screen.
Get a Theme showing User Names
Under the same tab, you can choose a style "Themed with face
browser", which lists user names on a login screen and saves you the
trouble of typing out a username each time you log in:
Download an MDM theme for example Super Brothers mdm, which supports this style, from gnome-look.org.
Add the theme file (.tar.gz) by drag-and-drop to the MDM, under the
"Local" tab with the style "Themed with face browser" chosen.
Click "Install", select this new theme and enjoy a new login session with a user list.
Tweak a GDM Theme for MDM Display Manager
Some themes are made for Gnome Display Manager (GDM), but you can also add it to MDM with just a minor tweak:
Right click a downloaded theme file (.tar.gz) and select "Open With Archive Manager" from the context menu.
Double click the folder inside the archive manager, then double click
this file "GdmGreeterTheme.desktop" in the expanded folder.
In the opened text editor Gedit, change this line [GdmGreeterTheme] to [MdmGreeterTheme], click "Save", "Update" and close Gedit.
Right click the file "GdmGreeterTheme.desktop" and rename to "MdmGreeterTheme.desktop", then close the archive manager.
The archived theme file is then tweaked and can be added to the MGM for use.
Change Default Boot Options
After full installation, Linux Mint is set to be the default
operating system to boot up if no key is pressed within a few seconds on
a multi-boot system. You might want to set your preferred operating
system to boot up by default. This can be done easily with StartUp-Manager.
Go to Menu > Applications > Administration > StartUp-Manager
Enter password to perform pre-configuration tasks, which include searching bootloaders to operating systems.
Select the default operating system from the pull-down menu, click "Close" to perform post-configuration tasks.
With StartUp-Manager, you can also do others such as manage Usplash
themes, adjust bootloader menu resolution or set timeout in seconds. Avoid changing timeout to 0 seconds if you need to select a system to boot up from a multi-boot menu. Note: If your startup splash logo is changed to text after
applying a graphics driver, the StartUp-Manager can be used to change
the text back to the logo by adjusting to higher resolution and color
depth supported by the driver.
Remove Old Linux Kernel, Clean Up Boot Menu
Each time when Linux Mint updates to a new Linux kernel, the old one
is left behind and the boot menu gets longer. If your new Linux kernel
works well, it's safe to remove the old one and clean up the boot menu.
Do take these steps carefully as incorrect removal of the items can make your system unbootable.
Go to Menu > Terminal.
Enter uname -r to print the Linux kernel version you're running (e.g. 3.2.0-23-generic).
Go to Menu > Package Manager.
Click Status from the left panel and select Installed.
Enter the main version number (e.g. 3.2.0) in the Search box.
Right-click the items with smaller sub version number (e.g. 3.2.0-22) for older Linux kernel and select Mark for Complete Removal.
The files for the older version to remove may include
linux-headers-3.2.0-22, linux-headers-3.2.0-22-generic and
linux-image-3.2.0-22-generic.
Click Apply from the top panel.
Click Apply again from the pop-up window to confirm removal of
the marked packages. The boot menu will be cleaned up automatically
after the removal is confirmed.
Note: Try also Grub Customizer
which can be used to hide items from the boot menu. Just install the
program by entering the following in the Terminal, then run the program,
untick the items you want to hide and click 'Save'.
A simple command can be entered in the Terminal to schedule a time for the system to shut down.
Go Menu > Terminal.
Enter sudo shutdown -h +m (replace m with the number of minutes, e.g. +60).
OR: enter sudo shutdown -h hh:mm (replace hh:mm with the time on the 24hr clock, e.g. 23:15).
Enter password and minimize the Terminal window.
The system will then shut down within the minutes or at the time specified. To cancel a scheduled time, enter sudo shutdown -c in the Terminal.
Alternatively, you might want to download and install GShutdown, which is a GUI program for scheduling a time to shutdown the system.saeed khan
Linux Mint is one of the top free operating systems widely used in the world and currently receives the highest hits at DistroWatch.
It
also pre-installs some proprietary software, including the Adobe Flash
plugin and necessary media codecs, by default so that you can view
streaming media, such as YouTube videos in a browser, and play mp3, mp4
or most other media files with a player right away out of the box.
Click Menu and select Terminal.
Right click "Menu", select "Preferences".
In
Windows 7, frequently used programs can be pinned to the taskbar (hence
called Superbar). Likewise, DockBarX, a new applet can now be added to
the MATE panel of Linux Mint to achieve almost the same effect to pin
and unpin or launch the applications from the panel.Open up the text editor Pluma and paste the following code:
When
you double-click the title bar of a window, the default setting is to
maximize a window. Since there's already a maximize button you can use
for this, I always like to change the default setting to rolling up a
window when I double-click on its title bar.Go to Menu > Applications > Perferences > Appearance
Go to Menu > System Tools > File Browser.
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Main Menu
Go To System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts
Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts.
Go to Menu > Terminal.
Install Screenlets Manager if it has not been added.
Go to Menu > Software Manager, type pysdm into the Search box and press "Enter".
Install Disk Utility if it has not been added.
Go To Menu > Applications > Preferences > Startup Applications
Go to Menu > Administration > "Login Window" to open this window "Login Window Preferences".
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