This is a nice tip for people who might want to integrate Google Reader into the Firefox sidebar.  Recently Google has made improvements to the mobile version of Google Reader, which has included support for the iPhone.  However, you can also use the mobile page in the sidebar in Firefox.  This is easy and quick to do.

1. In Firefox (I’m in Firefox 3), create a new bookmark by opening the bookmark organizer.  In Firefox 2 you can go to the File menu and select the new bookmark option.  In the bookmark organizer, you’ll have to open the folder where you want the new bookmark to be located, then right click and select new bookmark.
2. Type in a name, and http://www.google.com/reader/i/ in the location bar.
3. Check the “Load this bookmark in the sidebar” option.  Then click OK to create your new bookmark.

Then you can just use that bookmark to open Google Reader in Firefox’s Sidebar.  The only thing that I don’t really like about this method is that you have to read everything in the sidebar.  You could expand the sidebar to give you more viewing space, but I think it would probably be easier to just go to the main Google Reader site.

Via Download Squad.

I don’t usually post about shareware, but this program is the only one of its kind that I can find.  If anybody knows of a freeware program that does the same as Netlimiter, please post it in the comments.  Netlimiter is a great program that lets you monitor and change the limits for download and upload speed.  I’m using it to limit upload speeds for different applications since the upload speed really effects my whole home network.  If I’m uploading a lot, then somebody else on the network will probably experience a slow internet connection.

Many programs, like torrent downloaders, allow you to set limits on speed, but some programs don’t.  An example of this is downloading an update for World of Warcraft.  It uses P2P, which uploads and downloads, but doesn’t allow you to limit the upload speed.  With Netlimiter, I just find World of Warcraft on the list of programs and set the upload limit to 5k or 10k.  That way it won’t take up all of my internet speed.

Netlimiter is not free, unless you just want to use it as a bandwidth monitor.  If you want it to actually control your speeds, then you’ll have to buy the pro or lite version.  The lite version seems like it would be enough for me since it includes the limiter, but the pro version includes things like a scheduler and permissions editor.  Like I mentioned before, it would be nice to find a freeware program that did what Netlimiter does.  The freeware program would have to be able to limit upload and download speeds and not just monitor them.  I’ve searched for one, but can’t find any.  Let me know in the comments if you know of one.

Being at work or at a school that blocks certain activities on the web can be a pain.  I go to a university where all kinds of websites are blocked, and we aren’t allowed to use P2P.  What I usually do is I just find a cached version of a website since that is really all I can do.  However, there does seem to be a better way.

HTTP-Tunnel will allow you to browse the internet and use applications and games that are normally blocked on your network.  That means that people trying to play games like World of Warcraft on a network that usually blocks it could now play it by setting up HTTP-Tunnel.  Fortunately, I go to a school that doesn’t usually have any problems with me playing online games.  My university recently allowed Xbox Live on the network too, so I don’t have any need for getting around gaming problems.  The only things that I would use HTTP-Tunnel for would be P2P and accessing sites that are usually blocked.

I’m on summer break right now, so I’m not at my university, but I will most likely remember about this program by the time I go back to school.  I’d recommend downloading it whenever you are away from school since the school will most likely block the website to download HTTP-Tunnel.  I’d also set it up for Firefox or Internet Explorer so that you can access their site and forums since they will probably be blocked on the network too.  I tested it out on my home network and it seemed to work.  I know that isn’t the same as my school network, but I think it will do the job.

HTTP-Tunnel has a free version for the basic needs, but if you plan on using a lot of bandwidth through HTTP-Tunnel then you’ll probably need to pay a monthly fee.  The monthly fees are pretty cheap in my opinion.  Now, I just need to find a solution for the bandwidth cap that my university gives me.  Any ideas?

I still can’t seem to find an RTM client for Windows.  Until I do, I’ll have to use the web application or something like Doomi.  Doomi is an Adobe Air app that I just read about on the nice new website freshAIRapps.com.  Doomi allows you to make todo lists quickly and painlessly.  There are none of the fancy options that you get in all of the other todo list applications out there.

When you create a todo item in Doomi, it will list it in the order that they are created.  There is also a way to set up a reminder for 1 hour or even up to one day.  I’m not sure what the reminder does since I haven’t tested it out yet.  Other than that, you can check your todo items as complete, and you can view previously completed items.  There really isn’t much else to the program.  That’s not a bad thing, since that is all I need sometimes.

Maybe if I get the time and energy I’ll create my own AIR app for RTM.  I still really like being able to set up times, dates, and priorities for each of my tasks.  I don’t understand why there isn’t anything like Tasque for Linux on Windows.  I’m sure there will be sometime.

I’m not much of a torrent downloader, but occassionally I’ll find a file that is only available through torrents.  I always use one of the BitTorrent clients like Azureus or uTorrent.  I remember reading a while back that Image Shack was starting a torrent downloading website, but I think you have to pay a monthy fee in order to use it.  Torrent2Exe will not do what Image Shacks torrent downloading service does, but it will create an executable that allows you to download the torrent.

In other words, if you don’t have a torrent downloading client like uTorrent, then Torrent2Exe will allow you download torrents.  This is good for people who don’t know anything about torrents yet.  Personally, I’d still rather use a torrent client.  I guess a nice thing about this would be hosting the executable on your site.  Say you have a large file that you want others to download and you want to use a torrent, then all you have to do is put the executable file on your site and people can download the file without knowing it’s a torrent.

I’m not quite sure how it goes about getting around port forwarding issues.  That is one of the reasons why I’d rather use a torrent client.  I tested Torrent2Exe out and it seemed like it was having an issue with getting through my routers firewall.  Although, I’m sure there will be updates to this in the future.

I’ve booted back into Windows so I could write some more posts on Windows software, but during my time in Ubuntu I have accumulated some things that I’d like to access in Windows.  As you probably know, Windows doesn’t allow you to access your Linux partitions normally.  A great way to accomplish this is with Ext2 IFS For Windows.

There really isn’t much explanation on how to accomplish this since the installation is extremely easy.  During installation it will ask you to give the partition(s) drive letters.  Then once the software is installed you can access the partitions through My Computer.  It didn’t require me to restart my computer, which was a definite plus.  The installation went smoothly, and I have no trouble accessing my files.  I have yet to try to write to the Ext2 partitions, but I really don’t think I’ll have a need for that right now.  You can see from my screenshot below that I have two new drive letters (Y and Z) in My Computer.

I’m running Windows Vista and it is working fine.  I also read on the software’s website that it is possible to access Ext3 partitions.  The FAQ mentions that mounting an Ext3 partition as Ext2 can cause some problems if it is not properly dismounted.  You may want to read the FAQ if you happen to have an Ext3 partition.  Also, it is possible to uninstall the program through the Add/Remove Programs dialogue in the Control Panel.

If you’ve been keeping up with my website for a while, then you’ll know that I’m always looking at different software for taking screenshots.  I constantly take screenshots for my blog.  After I take the screenshot, I open them in GIMP, give them a drop shadow, change the size, and save the image.  This is a lengthy process, but it is all made easier with a neat little program that I recently found out about called Screenshot Captor.

Screenshot Captor is from the website Donation Coder, and if you haven’t heard of that site, it has a lot of great freeware.  Screenshot Captor will run in your system tray and will pop up a window whenever you take a screenshot.  Personally, I turned the popup off, and just allowed it to continue taking screenshots and saving them.  The great thing about that is that I can easily take multiple screenshots and edit them at the same time later.  This is what the main window looks like with one of my screenshots loaded.

One of my favorite features of this program is the option to add a drop shadow automatically to your screenshots.  That means that once you press the print screen key, Screenshot Captor will add the drop shadow and save it for you.  As you can see from the screenshot below, there are many other options to add to your screenshots on capture.

It is also very easy to change how the screenshots will be named.  You can set it so that it uses the window title as its name, or you could add the date that the screenshot was taken.  There are many other options as you can see.

Honestly, there are so many different options that I won’t be able to cover in this post.  You’ll just have to try it out for yourself.  This is by far my favorite Screenshot taking application that I have used so far.  It makes me want to take more screenshots!

A year ago today, my brother and I started this blog.  My brother stopped blogging at the end of the summer last year, and I have continued to blog about all kinds of different things.  This blog has grown and changed over the past year.  I plan on keeping it up for at least another year to see where it goes.  I’m sorry that sometimes I just don’t get the time to put into my website that I want.

Where this blog is going

I thought this would be a good post to mention where I see myself going with this blog.  Recently I have been using Ubuntu full time.  I haven’t booted into Windows, except for on VirtualBox, for about 2 weeks now.  Therefore, I have been posting more about Ubuntu.  I have tried getting some posts up about different things on the web, and software that is cross platform. I have seen somewhat of a growth in visits when I write about Linux, but I want to know what it is that my readers want to see.  Do you like posts about Windows, Linux, or what?

I don’t want to make this post too long, but I just wanted to say thanks for all of the readers that I have so far, and for all of the comments from my visitors!

Audacity has released a new beta version for their awesome open source sound editing software.  I’m not much of a sound editor, but I do use Audacity extensively for recording audio off of the internet.  This isn’t a major release, so don’t expect too much.  There are a few features that do look interesting, including a new plugin that can remove vocals.  Also, you can start recording at the end of an existing track by holding down Shift while clicking record.  Here’s the list of features included with Audacity (copied from the website):

Recording / Playback

• Several bugs fixed so that latency correction should be better, and more devices work correctly.
• Problems with invalid sample rates under Linux should be much rarer.
• Newer version of Portaudio library.
• New feature to record onto the end of an existing track (hold Shift while clicking Record).

Import / Export

• Updated versions of Libogg, Libvorbis, Libflac, Libsndfile and Twolame libraries.
• Handling of unsupported file formats more informative.
• Handling of file names with slashes on OS X improved.
• New dialog allows replacement of illegal file name characters on all platforms.

Interface

• Improved scaling and layout for rulers and VU meters.
• Envelope fixes/improvements including full control of undo/redo.
• New keyboard shortcuts and improved menu navigation.
• Preferences:
  • More intuitive tab arrangement.
  • New options for mute/solo and Metadata Editor behavior.
  • Language can now be changed without restart.
• Expanded Build Information tab.

Effects

• New Vocal Remover plug-in, improvements for Generate effects.

Compilation

• Fixes when building Audacity with libraries disabled.
• Improvements to make Mac and Solaris builds easier.

Security

• Full fix for issue CVE-2007-6061 on systems where temporary directories can be changed by other users (thanks to Michael Schwendt).

Miscellaneous

• Updated translations for many locales.
• Several stability improvements.

Download here.

There are many ways to download Youtube videos, but I wanted to highlight a couple of ways to download them using free software on Ubuntu.  The first one that I wanted to mention is a program called Utube Ripper.  This program uses Gambas 2, so you need to add this repository in order to install it:

deb http://azores.linex.org/gambas-other/ yourubuntudistro main

Then you need to install Gambas through your package manager or terminal.  After that, you can download the DEB, binary, or source code for Utube Ripper.  Once Utube Ripper is installed, you can then enter in a URL for the video that you want to download.  It will then download the video and save it for you.  Utube Ripper even allows you to convert your video to mpg, although I have had trouble with it not giving me audio.

Another way is to download youtube-dl, which is available for me in the Ubuntu repositories or you can download and install it from its homepage.  Once you install youtube-dl, you just run the script with the video URL and it will save it to the folder that you run it from.  It’s quick and easy, and doesn’t overload you with features.

One last method that I wanted to mention is File2hd.com.  I’ve mentioned this site before, but I thought that I’d remind my readers.  It will allow you to get basically any file from any site, including Youtube videos.  The nice thing about File2hd.com is that it will detect both the low and high quality versions (if available) of the video.  You can then choose which version you want.

Do you know of any other ways to download Youtube videos in Ubuntu?