Technology

Speed Reading Software ReadPal

If you are already know of programs that can increase the visibility of text on the Internet. We have reviewed quite a few of them in the past including the Readability bookmarklet. These tools basically remove all the clutter on a website so that the reader can concentrate on the textual information.

ReadPal goes a a step further. It is a free for personal use desktop application for the Windows operating system that integrates with Internet Explorer, most text processing programs but can also be used to load text files directly. The program has two main features.

The first provides text formatting and readability options to make the text more accessible and readable to the user. The program supports multiple modes in which the text can be viewed from column over banner to full screen. The initial layout displays the text on a black background with the possibility to change the color scheme in the program’s options. More »

Offsite Backup Solution MySQL Backup Tool

Like in the offline world backups are an important part of a webmaster’s disaster prevention and recovery strategy in the online world. Websites are usually made up of files on a web server and contents stored in a database. The best option to backup those files and databases is to run a cron job that backs up all files and moves them to another backup location so that the websites can be recovered even if the server should be damaged (storing the files on the same server can be problematic if the hard drive fails for instance which can mean that neither the current files and databases nor the backups can be accessed).

Webmasters who want to create a quick local copy of their MySQL database have also several options at hand. They can connect via ssh to the server and create a database backup or use phpMyAdmin if the database is not that big.

Another comfortable option is the offsite backup software MySQL Backup Tool for the Windows operating system. The Open Source software can be used to create a backup of a specified local or remote MySQL database.
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Share Ubuntu folders with NFS

If you’ve ever tried to share folders on a Linux machine over a network, you’ve most likely attempted to get NFS working. And on many occasions you might have found yourself nearly pulling out your hair in frustration. Well, you’ll be glad to know that getting NFS working on modern Ubuntu systems is actually quite simple. You just have to have a couple of pieces installed and access to the /etc/exports file.

In this article I am going to demonstrate how simple it is to share a folder, using NFS, between a Ubuntu machine and a Debian machine. When all is said and done, you’ll be surprised at how simple it is.

What is NFS?

NFS stands for (take a guess…) Network File System. NFS is a protocol developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984 to allow computers to share files and folders over a network. NFS is an open standard, defined in RFCs, and allows any to implement the protocol.

Although many prefer to employ Samba for network folder sharing, NFS still has a lot of good uses and some even prefer it over the more flexible Samba. More »

Automatic RSS Feed Attachment Downloader

The most common type of RSS feeds is textual. But there are also feeds with regular attachments like photo, video or audio attachments. Some RSS feed readers automatically download those attachments if the feed has been added to that reader while others do not do it or do not provide a comfortable option to download
and manage those attachments.

Automatic Feed Downloader is a very simplistic but fully working alternative to download attachments from as many feeds as desired. It works by adding feeds to the program and selecting a download folder on the local hard drive. All attachments are by default sorted into subdirectories named after the feed to make it easier to link attachments to feeds.

The application will start downloading attachments of the feeds as soon as they have been added. It will keep track of the attachments that have been already downloaded to avoid downloading duplicates. The software needs to be executed manually as there is no option to schedule regular feed downloads from within the interface.

One option is to add the RSS Feed attachment downloader to the Windows Task Scheduler so that it is started regularly to download new attachments that have been posted. Automatic Feed Downloader is a portable software program for the Windows operating system.It can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Internet Explorer HTML5 Video Tag Support

Internet Explorer 8 does not support the new HTML5 tags video or canvas and neither do previous versions of the Microsoft web browser. It is likely that Internet Explorer 9 will be released with full or at least partial support for those tags.

Christian Adam has released an experimental add-on for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer that adds support for the video tag to the web browser.

The project is still highly experimental but it could become an option for Internet Explorer users who would like to (or have to) work with HTML5 video.

The screencast above explains how support for the HTML5 video tag can be added to Internet Explorer. The developer provides a setup on his website that needs to be executed. This file adds the support.

A demonstration video is linked from the blog post as well which can be used to test the support of the HTML5 video tag. It did not work for us in our Internet Explorer 8 browser.

It is likely that the developer will continue improve the Internet Explorer extension so that it becomes more stable and reliable.

Visit IE video tag – Take Two on Christan Adam’s weblog to access the original announcement and downloads.

Reprofiler Fixes Windows User Profile Errors

Every user in the Windows operating system has a user folder associated with the account name that stores computer settings and data. It can happen that the link between the user account and the user folder gets lost. Some reasons for this are hardware failures, migrating to a new computer system, username changes, joining the computer to a domain or file system permission issues.

It can happen that Windows fails to recognize the user profile and folder that is linked to the user account. This has the result that a new user profile is created on the next log in which will from then on be used instead of the old one.

This process can be reverted by either editing relevant settings in the Windows Registry and changing permissions on the computer system or by using a software like Reprofiler. More »

Windows File Search Index Your Files

Index Your Files is a portable file search alternative for the Windows operating system. It uses an index that needs to be created on the first run and consecutive runs. The index can either consist of the contents of selected hard drives, partitions or individual folders.

The index is automatically compressed by the file search software which does not noticeably affect the speed of the program.

Several filters are provided in the program’s interface. It is possible to search by name, file extension, time period, file contents or file sizes.

The program can maintain multiple indexes which can be searched together or individually. All results are displayed in the same interface with their name, folder, file extension, size, data and database the entry was found.
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Migrate users from one Linux machine to another

Have you ever had a need to migrate current running Linux users from installation to another? That would be a simple task if the user count was low. But what happens when the user count is in the hundreds? What do you do then? If you’re not using LDAP, you know you will have to migrate the users’ data, passwords, etc from the old machine to the new. Believe it or not, this is just a matter of a few commands – not necessarily simple commands, but it’s not as complex as you would think.

In this article I am going to show you how to make this migration so your Linux users do not loose their data and their passwords are all retained.

What we migrating

The list is fairly simple:

* /etc/passwd - Contains information about the user.
* /etc/shadow – Contains the encrypted passwords.
* /etc/group – Contains group information.
* /etc/gshadow – Contains group encrypted passwords.
* /var/spool/mail – Contains users email (the location will depend upon the mail server you use).
* /home/ – Contains users data.

Unfortunately these files can not simply be copied from one machine to another – that would be too easy. Just make sure you enter the following commands correctly. More »

Music Player XMPlay 3.5.1 Released

Windows users have several choices when it comes to selecting a music player. The Windows operating system comes preinstalled with Windows Media Player which is a valid option. And then there are half a dozen popular music players from third parties like iTunes, Winamp, Foobar, AIMP2 or MediaMonkey.

XMPlay is still mostly unknown to the majority of Windows users can be explained with the dominance of the other players that are available. Who needs yet another player if there are many available that do their job just fine?

XMPlay on the other hand is different than most. Its developer has concentrated the efforts on producing a lightweight portable music player that is packed with features and compatible with all popular music formats that users might encounter. More »

SSD Drive Tweaker

Early adopters are use cutting edge technology which sometimes backfires. If you bought a first or second generation Solid State Drive (SSD) you might have experienced this first hand. SSD performance is fine in the beginning but begins to go down with use to a point where the once fast and accessible cutting edge drive becomes slower than modern conventional hard drives.

Second generation drives can sometimes be saved by applying a firmware patch that will add trim support and a software solution that’s called Wiper. Trim needs to be supported by the SSD’s firmware and the operating system. Currently only Windows 7 and a few Linux distributions support it.

Trim is a command that the operating system can send to the flash storage controller letting the controller know which data is not longer needed which speeds up the write processes. But this speed gain diminishes with the fill rate of the drive which is why most manufacturers suggest that the drive should only be filled up to 80% of its capacity. More »