Tech Recipes

XP / Vista: How to Rip DVDs to Apple TV for Free

Using free software, ripping your movies or TV episodes to your Apple TV is simple. These directions and screenshots will help you get your collection on your Apple TV in no time.

Google Calendar: Save Your Calendar as a PDF

If you want to send your friends or family a copy of your calendar or even your schedule for a particular day, Google Calendar makes it a simple task. By following these simple steps, you can generate a PDF file of the desired day, month, etc. so that you can then email it for others to view

Windows Live Writer: Inserting Virtual Earth Road Maps and Aerial Shots

Live Writer makes it simple to add maps and aerial shots to your blog when you want to provide driving instructions or pictures of a specific location to your readers.

Keynote: Print Slides in Columns

Printing nine slides per printed page is a common way of making handouts from powerpoint or keynote presentations. In Keynote, finding this printing option is difficult. Here is where to find it...

The Ubuntu Experience: Month One

After seeing that seamonkey420 had taken the jump to Ubuntu, I decided to give it a try myself. Since I have been a Windows user forever, I made the commitment to utilize the OS for my day-to-day computing for at least a month. I figured that I would need at least that long to stop performing mental comparisons between Ubuntu and Windows. Now that a month has passed, I find myself actually enjoying the operating system.

Continue reading about my Ubuntu experience...

Nokia N800/N810: How To Find the MAC Address

If your wireless router uses MAC filtering, you will need to know the MAC address of your internet tablet so that it may connect to the internet. You could take the back off of your device to find this information, but there is a simpler way.

Photoshop CS3 Lab Color Enhancement: Central Park Wysteria

Here's another example of an image quickly improved by enhancements and sharpening in the Lab color space. This shot was taken in Central Park of a wysteria vine that had taken on tree-like proportions. All I had with me was a small point-and-shoot and we were in a bit of a hurry, so I just snapped the picture letting the camera do everything. In just a couple of minutes playing/working in Lab Color made a substantial difference. The result is an image that has much stronger colors and makes me happier to look at.

Nokia N800/N810: Remove Unnecessary Items from Status Bar

The Status bar on your OS2008 internet tablet informs you of various information such as battery life, Bluetooth status, etc. However, having too many items on the status bar can be overwhelming and look rather overcrowded. By removing the items you don't use, you are left with a clean, easily read status bar.

Ubuntu: Close a Non-Responding App with xkill

It's bound to happen, one of your applications freezes up when you try to run it and you cannot close it. Instead of having to restart your system and wasting valuable time, you can simply use xkill to terminate the application so that you can continue with your computing tasks.

Ubuntu: Generate a Hardware Profile for Your System

A hardware profile is a great way to uncover what's under the hood of your system without having to crack open the case. By utilizing a terminal command, you can easily generate a hardware profile for your computer to print out or save for future reference.

Ubuntu: Enable Window Grouping on the Window List

Window grouping can be a big help in keeping your Window List from becoming overcrowded. When you have multiple windows of the same application (such as your web browser) open, only the application name will show in the window list. When selected, a dropdown will list all open windows for that application, which makes it easier to find the one you are looking for.

Ubuntu: How To Create an ISO Image from a CD or DVD

I do a great deal of experimenting with virtual computer environments and utilize ISO images quite often instead of constantly going back to the same CD repeatedly. Ubuntu makes it easy to create an ISO image from your CD or DVD.