Windows Vista is a resource hog, yes it consumes a lot of memory to run and occupies a lot of disk space to install.  By default Vista allocates 15% of your total disk space for System Restore.  Sounds like very small, but if you have let us say 1TB of disk space, that is a total of additional 150GB that the system uses!

To reclaim this wasted disk space, we need to get our hands a little dirty and will use the command prompt.

> Click on the Windows Start Button

> Click on All programs then Accessories

> On the Accessories menu Right Click on the Command Prompt option

> From the drop Down menu that appears, choose Run as Administrator

> When the Command Prompt window opens type: “vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=X: /For=X: /Maxsize=XX.XGB”  - without the quotes and Press Enter

NOTE: X: = Drive Letter of Target Drive, e.g.; C:
NOTE: XX.X = the maximum size in GB’s or MB’s

> If all is done correctly you should see a message saying “Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association”

This is how it should look for drive C:, remember there are Spaces between each command group:
“vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=C: /for=C: /maxsize=5GB”

> You can restart your computer and rest assured that Vista will only use the disk space that you have allocated for System Restore.

(Video demo on bottom of article)

Today, I will discuss and teach you on how to join files in ubuntu. To do that, we are going to use both commands, Concatenate and Mencoder in the terminal. Don’t worry, I will guide you and It’s not that hard to learn. You don’t need to memorize all these commands just some few basic key elements and you’re all set to start your everyday life in Ubuntu. I’m still a novice in Linux and quite a beginner using the terminal, but as you practice you learn more things about this interesting Operating System.

Just like in Windows Command Prompt you’ll see the familiar symbol C://> but in linux you’ll see this $ prompt instead. More look like a dollar string sign. To start the terminal; Goto - Applications/Accessories/Terminal and it will open into something like this.username@computer-name:~$   — normally, this is your home folder.For today’s session, I will use this symbol “$” prompt in all of my example. Now, let’s begin….type the following at the terminal and be sure you are connected online.

$ sudo apt-get install mencoder
— This will give you a temporary admin rights to install software packages into your Ubuntu box. It will prompt you to enter your password.

— It will give you an output like this, but yours might display different.
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libtwolame0
Suggested packages:
libdvdcss mplayer-doc w32codecs
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libtwolame0 mencoder
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 3748kB of archives.
After this operation, 8745kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

— then press “Y” and ENTER to continue…. it will download the package from it’s repositories….

Get:1 http://ph.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/universe libtwolame0 0.3.10-2 [57.5kB]
Get:2 http://ph.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/multiverse mencoder 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13 [3690kB]
Fetched 3748kB in 2min45s (22.7kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libtwolame0.
(Reading database … 97770 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libtwolame0 (from …/libtwolame0_0.3.10-2_i386.deb) …
Selecting previously deselected package mencoder.
Unpacking mencoder (from …/mencoder_2%3a1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13_i386.deb) …
Setting up libtwolame0 (0.3.10-2) …

Setting up mencoder (2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13) …
Processing triggers for libc6 …
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

Then your all done. Is that easy….

I’m assuming you already have the files with you.

Figure: 1
Infile1.avi     —–     100mb
Infile2.avi     —–     100mb

Concatenate - Let’s you join/combine two or more files in one. You can even use this command with your documents. The command syntax for concatenate is “cat” then your file (infile1.avi)  then followed by the file (infile2.avi) you want to join and “>” the output you want to save as your new joined files.

Figure: 2-1
$  cat infile1.avi infile2.avi > output-filename.avi

This will combine the two files, but were not done yet as these files will only create one big file. As they are still out-of-sync….

Figure: 3-1
Infile1.avi                     —–     100mb
Infile2.avi                     —–     100mb
output-filename.avi     —–     200mb

Now, we are going to use the Mencoder, but before we do that. We just need to familiarize with the basic commands first.

mencoder - (MPlayer’s Movie Encoder) is a simple movie encoder, designed to encode MPlayer-playable movies. It encodes to MPEG-4 (DivX/Xvid), one of the libavcodec codecs and PCM/MP3/VBRMP3 audio in 1, 2 or 3 passes. Furthermore it has stream copying abilities, a powerful filter system (crop, expand, flip, postprocess, rotate, scale, noise, RGB/YUV conversion) and more.

-o (Output File) more likely the save as new-filename
-ovc (Output Video Codec) Encode with the given video codec
-oac (Output Audio Codec) Encode with the given audio codec

Example:
-ovc (codec name) your encoding choice

-ovc copy
no encoding, just streamcopy
-ovc lavc
Encode with a libavcodec codec.

-oac (codec name) your encoding choice

-oac copy
no encoding, just streamcopy
-oac mp3lame
Encode to MP3 (using LAME).

NOTE: to get a list of available video and audio codecs.

type the following at the terminal:
$  mencoder -ovc help

$  mencoder -oac help

Basic command syntax for mencoder:

Figure: 4
$ mencoder infile.avi -o outfile.avi -ovc copy -oac copy

Now, that we are more familiar with the commands. Let’s continue the tutorial’s and what’s left in Figure: 2-1.

Figure: 2-2
$ mencoder output-filename.avi -o final-output.avi -forceidx -ovc copy -oac copy

…..done….

-forceidx - Force index rebuilding. Useful for files with broken index (A/V desync, etc). This will enable seeking in files where seeking was not possible. You can fix the index permanently with MEncoder.

Figure: 3-2
Infile1.avi                   —–     100mb
Infile2.avi                   —–     100mb
output-filename.avi     —–     200mb
final-output.avi            —–     200mb

Note: you can safely remove output-filename.avi as it is no longer needed.

If you find this tutorials a bit confusing, Let’s skip the first one and get the short version instead…… hehehe……

Shorter Version:
$ mencoder infile1.avi infile2.avi -o final-output.avi -ovc copy -oac copy

…..and THAT’s IT!

type exit to close the terminal.

From Microsoft:

This installation package is intended for IT professionals and developers downloading and installing on multiple computers on a network. If you’re updating just one computer, please visit Windows Update.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system.

Download XP SP3  here

Some functionality includes:

Basics:

• Crop and Rotate
• Auto Correct
• Exposure
• Red Eye Removal
• Touchup
• Saturation

Tuning:

• White Balance
• Highlight
• Fill Light
• Sharpen
• Soft Focus

Effects:

• Pop Color
• Hue
• Black and White
• Tint
• Skecth
• Distort

… and more to come since the online tool is still in Beta..

Photoshop Express also allows you to store your images online (up to 2GB of space), create a gallery and slide shows or even browse other users’ images available to public.

Click here to try Photoshop Express now.

Quite simply, Miro is a free application for channels of internet video (also known as ‘video podcasts and video rss). Miro is designed to be easy to use and to give you an elegant fullscreen viewing experience.

There are thousands of free internet video channels that you can watch. You’ll be able to download all the videos that each channel offers and when new ones are released, Miro will grab them automatically.

Unlike tiny videos on websites like YouTube, Miro videos are usually very high quality and look great when watched full screen. Since Miro downloads videos completely before you watch, your videos will never skip or stutter while they are playing.

To download Miro click here

Below is a demo video on how to use Miro:

Main Features of IZarc:

• Create an archive
• Add files to an existing archive
• Delete files from an existing archive  
• Extract files from an existing archive  
• Test an archive file  
• Convert archive
• Convert CD Images
• Repair broken archive
• Searching for any files in many archives
• Favorite Folders
• Obtaining a detailed list of files and information like compression rate, path, or size from an archive file
• Supports both long and short 8.3 filenames
  
• Disk spanning from and to multiple diskettes or other removable media
  
• Implementing the possibility to sort the list items by name size, date and etc.
  
• Full Drag & Drop support  
• CD/DVD Images support (ISO, BIN, MDF, NRG, IMG, C2D, PDI, CDI)
• Integrating in Windows Explorer context menu  
• Automatic installation of most software distributed in archive files
• Add/View comments in an archive
• By double-clicking onto a file in the file list, it’s opened with the program associated to this file type
• CheckOut feature
  
• Create a self-extracting archive
• E-mail an archive
• Checking for new updates
• Build-in multilanguage support
• Virus Scan feature
• UU/XX/MIME Encode/Decode
• Create Multi-Volume Set
• Merge Multi-Volume Set
• UnSFX (Convert self-extracting (SFX) .EXE files to standard archives)
• Encrypt files using Rijandael - AES (256-bits) encryption
• Zip encryption (WinZip 9 compatible)
• BZip compression for ZIP archives
• Decrypt (.ize) files

 Download IZarc here

The following fifty proprietary programs are listed in no particular order within broad categories along with their open source alternatives. In some cases you could probably write your own book on frustrations with the proprietary programs shown here. In other cases, you’ll discover that the open source alternative isn’t quite up to snuff yet. And, in other cases still, you’ll learn that some proprietary programs are real gems, but that the open source advocate can replace those gems with equally shiny objects from the open source repertoire.

Click here to read the full list.

RockXP

RockXP allows you to retrieve all Microsoft product keys. It also has the ability to backup and restore activation files. It even allows you to change your Windows XP product key. Some advance features also allow you to retrieve MSN, XP login and password or display system password. It is a standalone program and no installation needed. When running this program some anti virus software may identify it as a security threat. But this program is clean and mean.
Download RockXP here.

Magical Jellybean Keyfinder

The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it for safekeeping. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Windows Vista, Office 97, Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007 (the MJK beta release as of this writing). This tool is also a standalone program and no installation required.
Download Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder here.

Read the full announcement

Download Mandriva 2008

Get it here: http://software.opensuse.org/

Documentation here: http://en.opensuse.org/Documentation