Google Profiles Suggested Links

Google’s unified profiles are slowly added to all Google services that allow user-generated content. “A Google Profile is simply how you represent yourself on Google products — it lets you tell others a bit more about who you are and what you’re all about. You control what goes into your Google Profile, sharing as much (or as little) as you’d like,” explains Google. For now, the profiles are displayed next to the list of shared items from Google Reader, in the Google Books library and next to the custom maps, reviews and edits from Google Maps.

Sprint Touch with Windows Mobile 6.1, GPS, and RevA

Why update the ROM on your device?

The software upgrade posted below provides several key enhancements for your Touch:
Why update the ROM on your device?

The software upgrade posted below provides several key enhancements for your Touch:

1. Upgrades the operating system from Windows Mobile® 6.0 Professional to Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
2. EV-DO Rev. A functionality for faster download and upload speeds when utilizing data services wherever EV-DO Rev. A coverage is available
3. Advanced GPS functionality including the Sprint Navigation application
4. Adds the Opera browser
5. Adds a full Qwerty on-screen key Qwerty keyboard

Having problems installing something on your new Ubuntu operating system? “Where’s the EXE?”, “Where do I need to extract this to?”, “How do I run it?”, “Where did it go?” - have you been thinking questions like these? Don’t worry, installing software, themes and other things on Ubuntu is actually very easy! This guide will help you understand with screenshots, instructional videos and to-the-point language.

The guide shows graphical step by step processes for installing applications in Ubuntu… check it out at Monkeyblog.

Nerdbusiness created this tutorial. So you don’t have to leave Windows to try ubuntu. I’ll be showing you how to setup a “virtual machine” inside Windows that will run Ubuntu inside a tidy little window. So you can launch it from the Start Bar. And have Ubuntu running in the background just like any other Windows program like the internet browser or your game of solitaire.

Having Ubuntu running inside Windows is just cool. Plus, it's a great way to try out all of Ubuntu's features

Multiple Operating System Advantages

Besides the benefit of being able to try out Ubuntu within a Windows environment, having another operating system on your machine can be a tremendous advantage in testing websites & software. As a developer, it’s important to ensure your work is compatible with as many different configurations as possible.

With this tutorial, in addition to being able to run Ubuntu, you can take the concepts here and install even more operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, their corresponding 64 bit versions, or other Linux distros (sorry no Apple OS support yet) and have them all available to you at the same time.

Drag and Drop Files

A really neat feature that this setup will allow you to do is to Drag and Drop files from one operating system to another.

Get Ubuntu (691 MB)

The first step is to download Ubuntu. Currently the 8.04 beta is available. Download this at Ubuntu.com

Proceed to the download page and get the 32 bit i386 version. Currently I would advise you to avoid the 64 bit versions, even if you have a 64 bit processor, because there are a ton of compatibility issues with this at the moment.

You can download it direct OR you the fastest method is actually to download by torrent. On any given day there are hundreds of Ubuntu seeders so with the torrent you should quickly reach the highest possible download speeds on your connection.

Above: You’ll notice a list of the torrents at the bottom of the Ubuntu download page. You’re going to want to download i386.iso or i386.iso.torrent as shown above.

While this downloads, continue to the next step.

Nerds & Virtual Machines

The magic tool that brings this altogether is a program called VMware Workstation. With it, we will create a hardware virtual machine, install, and run Ubuntu on it. A Virtual Machine (VM) is a software environment that emulates the hardware of a computer. The OS can’t tell the difference between running inside a VM or in an actual computer so you can do almost anything you can do with a real PC.

This type of virtual machine there are loads of other neat advantages. One is that everything inside of your VM including the emulated hardware specs will reside in a single encapsulated file. So you can transfer it from computer to computer without any compatibility problems. Want to take your Ubuntu with you on the go? No problem, just copy the virtual machine file from desktop to laptop.

Download VMware Workstation (322 MB)

Before installing Ubuntu, we’ll need VMware Workstation. Goto VMWare.com or click here to go straight to the download page.

From here, click the “Evaluate” button to proceed to getting a 30 day license key. Although it technically is just a 30 day trial, at the end of 30 days you can easily login and request a new evaluation code to continue using it for another 30 days. Since you can do this for as long as you need, it’s essentially a free program as long as you don’t mind generating a new evaluation code each month.

Once you have completed the Evaluation form and have setup an account, it should confirm everything by email. Login here with the account you just created to proceed to the download page.

Download the main installation file and copy the serial key displayed on your page.

Once you have VMWare Workstation downloaded, proceed through the installation and enter your licence key when it first load up.

Creating a Virtual Machine for Ubuntu

After VMware is installed, creating a virtual machine is easy. All you need is some extra hard drive space (I recommend at least 8 GB).

Installing Ubuntu

Assuming your download is complete, burn the Ubuntu ISO to CD. Since our virtual machine uses the actual CD drive in your system, to install Ubuntu we just need to have this freshly burned disc in the drive and Vmware will boot the disc just as a real computer would during a normal installation.

With the Ubuntu installation CD loaded into your disc tray, click on “Start this Virtual Machine” from your new VMware Ubuntu tab.

Above: click on the green arrow to start the virtual machine to install Ubuntu

At this stage, the virtual machine will boot from the Ubuntu install CD.

Above: from here you basically just need to press “Next” a few times and wait for the install process to compete.

Above: the Installation of Ubuntu is super easy, no special steps are required besides creating a username & password for your user account.

You are now Using Linux

Congrats, welcome to the Ubuntu experience. Feel free to poke around and explore what’s included in the OS or read on to find out my next recommendations.

Better Virtual Machine Performance

Because of our special virtual machine setup, it’s recommended to take an additional step and install Vmware Tools. In addition to significantly increasing graphical performance, VMware Tools unlocks a couple of useful integrations with Windows. Including the ability to drag and drop files between your Ubuntu and Windows desktops. It also removes the need to press “CTRL-ALT” to unset the focus when transitioning between operating systems making for a much smoother experience while using both operating systems at the same time.

This step requires the command line… but trust me, this will be one of the few times you’ll need the command prompt to install a program. With Ubuntu, gone are the days of needing the Command Prompt to perform basic tasks. it’s now easier to use than ever and installing programs are a breeze. Yet this particular package needs the command prompt.

Installing VMware Tools

Before doing anything in Ubuntu, use the main VMware Workstation toolbar and navigate to VM then “Install Vmware Tools”.

Above: click “Install Vmware Tools..” when Ubuntu is loaded up to proceed with the installation

After clicking it, it will have mounted a new CD in a virtual drive within your Ubuntu environment. The files for VMWare Tools are on this CD in an archive, so we’ll need to extract them and then compile it to complete the process.

Double click the new “Vmware Tools” icon on your desktop. Then click and drag the tar.gz file to your desktop. From here, right click this package and press “Extract Here” just like any standard zip file.

Above: right click the VMware Tools .tar package and choose “Extract Here”

Next, access the Ubuntu command prompt by going to Applications, Accessories , then Terminal.

Here type:

cd ~

Then type:

cd Desktop

Then type:

cd vmware-tools-distrib

These commands will have navigated you to the newly extracted folder, so now type the following to execute:

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

From here, verify your password and let it do it’s thing. There will be a lot of stoppages throughout the process where you’ll be required to press Enter. Just press Enter at every stop until it’s completed.

Once completed, give the system a restart and load everything back up gain. You should notice things are looking & running a lot smoother.

Optimize Your Resolution

The handling of resolution is much more effective now too. You can now resize the Window and the Ubuntu screen resolution will automatically re-adjust on the fly. To ensure this feature is activated, in the main Vmware Workstation toolbar, goto “View” and ensure the “Autofit Window” checkmark is enabled.

Sync Your Mouse Speed

And now that your mouse can seamlessly cross from Windows to Ubuntu without interruption, one thing you may want to do is “sync” your mouse speed if it’s not already the same. You can do this by accessing the main “System” menu then choosing “Mouse”. Here you can adjust the acceleration speed until you find the mouse travels the same speed as it does for you within Windows.

This concludes the tutorial aspect of this article. If you have any troubles setting up & installing Ubuntu, feel free to post in the Comments.

Software Recommendations

Now you can really start using Ubuntu. One of the most powerful features of Ubuntu is the massive selection of apps available that can be installed on your system almost instantaneously. With traditional Windows Apps, you have to actually goto a company’s official website to download software and navigate around to find the .exe file.

And in Windows if you goto “Add/Remove Programs” only the programs you want to remove are listed. Yet how come there is no way to actually “Add” programs?

In Ubuntu, the “Add/Remove Applications” menu actually does it’s job by listing all programs installed plus the list of all programs available (well not quite, just the “officially approved” apps are listed. For the complete list of available apps goto System –> Administration –> then Synaptic Package Manager).

Install the Basic Apps

Goto Applications then Add/Remove Programs. To ensure that you are seeing a wider selection of available apps, click on the “Show” box and choose “All available applications” as shown below.

Above: Ubuntu allows you to easily install the best applications available from one categorized interface

Now to install Apps, it’s just a matter of marking the checkbox for as many different apps as you want to install and choose “Apply Changes” at the bottom. From all of your choices download & automatically install.

Mp3 Playback & Video Codecs

The easiest way to get mp3 playback and the latest video formats to play is to install all of the Gstreamer plugins listed within the Sound & Video category.

amaroK
Quite possibly the best music software ever made, even better than what is available on Windows. Again you can find this one within the Sound & Video category.

OpenOffice
For the ultimate MS Office replacement, OpenOffice is an incredible Open Source office suite. With the ability to edit & save to other formats such as Microsoft’s word’s “.doc” the transition is easy. Plus it offers a lot of features that aren’t available in the standard MS Office such as the ability to export directly o PDF.

Thunderbird
Thunderbird is a stand-alone mail client created by the Mozilla team. With countless themes & extensions Thunderbird is quickly becoming the best email software solution available.

Additional Resources
UbuntuGuide.org
UbuntuForums.org

Source: Nerdbusiness

Once the Vista SP1 slipstream pack is ready, you can burn those files to make a bootable Vista Service Pack 1 DVD.

Before we get started, here are four things you need to slipstream Windows Vista and Service Pack 1 files:

a. Windows Vista Installer DVD and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Installer - x86 or x64
b. vLite Installer - link
c. A blank DVD disc for writing the Vista SP1 files and few gigs of free hard disk space.

Now that you have all the ingredients ready, let’s get slipstreaming Vista SP1:

1. Insert the original Windows Vista DVD disk and start vLite (install the program if you haven’t done that already).

2. Browse for the folder that contains your Windows Vista files (i.e., your DVD Drive letter). vLite will now copy all the files to some local folder that is specified by you.

3. Once all the pre-SP1 Windows Vista files are copied to the local hard disk, specify the Windows Vista Edition that you want to slipstream. This step is necessary because installers for all Vista Editions are shipped in one DVD.

4. On the next screen, select the following tasks “Service Pack Slipstream” and “Bootable ISO” -> next -> select the location of standalone Windows Vista SP1 installer file.

5. vLite can take 60-90 minutes for integrating all the SP1 files into Vista Installer. Once this process is complete, change the mode to “Direct Burn”, pop a blank DVD and Burn.

Your Windows Vista SP1 Bootable DVD will be ready in few minutes.

SP1 added some needed tweaking and really helped stabilize Vista, why not reclaim some disk space by removing all the older Vista files?

There are no manual steps involved. Just open your Windows command prompt and type vsp1cln.exe (short for Vista SP1 Cleaner). It takes less than a minute to execute.

*vsp1cln.exe is added to your Windows Vista System folder after you install Vista SP1. The command window will display:

Would you like to continue? (Y/N): y

Performing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Disk Clean-up…

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Desk Clean-up completed.

This will make  Windows Vista Service Pack 1 permanent on this computer. All the older files are deleted now and your hard disk has tons of extra space for other important files like videos and photos.

You computer need not be connected to the Internet for running the Vista SP1 cleaner tool. And you won’t be able to remove Windows Vista Service Pack 1 later.

17 Hot Photography Links From Around the Web

1. Make Your own BikeCAM - a fun DIY with a video
2. 5 Ways to Hold Your Viewer’s Attention - 5 simple composition techniques
3. Transforming a Daylight Image into a Wild Night - Photoshop tutorial
4. Nine Reasons to Manually Focus When Taking Pictures - sometimes manual focusing is your best option
5. The Importance of focus and quick tips on how to get it right - another focusing related tutorial
6. My Photography Workflow - Photographer Thomas Hawk talks us through his workflow
7. The 15 Second DIY Adjustable Snoot! - a fast DIY
8. The Nuts and Bolts of Off-Camera Flash - first part of a four part series on off camera flash (part 2 here).
9. 8 Photography Myths Debunked - just what the title says
10. Getting Rid of Dust Spots - Photoshopping tips
11. Flicker Flash - How to capture movement with a series of strobe flashes
12. Introduction to Digital Photography - 10 Ways to Improve your skills
13. On Assignment: Night Chopper Pt 2 - 2nd in a series of shots taking you on a shoot of a chopper at night
14. Your Guide to Buying Old Film Cameras - Feeling Retro? This one’s for you!
15. Seeing the Possibilities - a great post on how to see possibilities in different locations
16. Understanding Camera Exposure Modes - talking you through spot, evaluative and center-weighted metering.
17. Curves color enhancement tutorial - a video screencast of GIMP in action

Of course, beauty-retouching is a quite deceptive art. The masters of Photoshop create illusions which are hard to tell apart — unless you have both a genuine photo and the final result in Photoshop and can directly compare them. In fact, every day we consume perfectly retouched stars and models online and offline which just look different in the real life.

Still, it is not the reason to avoid learning advanced Photoshop techniques for beauty-retouching and study examples of how it is done in practice. The list at their site presents both image-tutorials as well as video-tutorials. Most examples have a before-vs.-after-comparison and you can follow the modifications with Photoshop step-by-step.

Here are a couple of highlights… head to SmashingMagazine’s article for the full list.

• Beautiful Skin
  Not everyone has beautiful skin but you can make it better - at least in your photographs.
• Color hair locks
  Changing hair color in just few minutes.
• Spare Tires
  In this tutorial we will see how to remove love handles (or the extra fat around the waist).
• Eliminate Cellulite
  In this tutorial you can learn how to eliminate a person’s cellulite.
• Enhancing Iris Color
  It is said that the eyes are windows into the soul. This tutorial details a simple yet powerful technique for altering eye color using basic Photoshop tools.
• The art of retouching
  Glenn Feron was born, then found art and was born again.
• Breast Enlarge
  This tutorial shows you how to enlarge a breast.
• Phoenix Hair Effect
  With some simple brushing techniques, and a bit of color tweaking, you can spice up your photos with this flaming hair tutorial.

So that’s about one screenshot from each of the sections outlined by SmashingMag…. I think they article they present can be of a serious use to professional graphic designers or even just casual Photoshop users who want to increase their skills. Check out the full article at SmashingMagazine.

Imagine all your devices—PCs, and soon Macs and mobile phones—working together to give you anywhere access to the information you care about.

With Live Mesh, you can spend less time managing devices and data and more time connecting with family and friends or collaborating with colleagues.

The announcement has been made on the Live Mesh Forum:

Live Mesh is now openly available to anyone in the U.S.

The Live Mesh team is pleased to announce that anyone in the U.S. can now use Live Mesh just by signing in to www.mesh.com with a valid Windows Live ID. No sign up needed to participate!

International Customers

With Live Mesh open to anyone in the US, our international friends can join in the fun early as well - with one caveat: you must be willing to change your Windows operating system region and language setting to EN-US. Once you do this you will be able to immediately sign in to Live Mesh with a valid Windows Live ID. Please be aware that this may cause other applications that specifically require your native country region and language settings to encounter problems.

Feedback

Once you’ve begun using Live Mesh, we’d love to hear from you! We are working hard to create the best experience and appreciate any feedback you have. Please send us feedback using our online form. You can also submit (and view others’) feedback and bugs here on the Microsoft Connect website.

Thank you,
The Live Mesh team

Timing wise, with the launch of Apple’s iTunes App store this morning, they expect to see this showing up very soon. You can check out their screencast here.

Alternatively, you can go for WPTouch. Simply put, it’s a complimentary theme installed as a plugin on your WordPress blog or website that will format your content with this Apple-inspired, full-featured theme when your visitors are using an iPhone or iPod touch. The entire package for WPtouch is only 660kb. It was designed to be as lightweight and speedy as possible, while still serving your blog’s content in a richly presented way.

You can grab WPTouch here.