The old DOS games hold their own charms and we can never forget our first brush with Wolf3D and Prince of Persia. Even when have all forgotten how the DOS prompt looked, it’s easier to play DOS games. But what happen when you ditch Windows and switch Ubuntu. Do you bid farewell to all your DOS games once you start using Ubuntu?

You don’t need to. You get a DOS simulator that you can run under Ubuntu, and from there you can easily run your good old DOS games. It is called DOSBOX. You can install DOSBOX either through the Synaptic Package Manager, or simply through the Terminal Window. If you use the Terminal Window you can install DOSBOX using the following command:

sudo apt-get install dosbox

Once you have installed DOSBOX you can create a directory, something like /home/yourname/dosgames and store your DOS games in their respective folders there.

Then go back to the terminal and launch DOSBOX with

sudo dosbox

Running DOS games with DOSBOX on Ubuntu - the prompt

While you are in the DOS prompt, you’ll need to mount the folder to a spare drive. Assuming you have a drive D that you can spare, you execute the following command:

mount d /home/yourname/dosgames

Then, while remaining in the DOSBOX window, go to the D drive by executing

d:

Then go to the right folder by this command:

cd mygame

Then, simply run the executable file.

DOS game Wolf3D running on Ubuntu

Self pity is a too expensive hobby to indulge in. No matter how rich one is, this hobby is costly even to the richest on this planet. So it’s better to get out of self pity as soon as possible.

Slipping into self pity is quite easy but getting out of it is not so easy. But with a little bit of sustained effort you can get out of self pity.

Be Alert

You have to be on guard as far as self-pity is concerned. It creeps into your being and takes over everything good. You have to be on high alert if you want to get rid of self pity. Pay attention to your thought. Whenever self-pity sneaks in try to stop that thought pattern immediately. Otherwise it triggers a chain reaction and you will never know that you are again indulging in unaffordable self-pity.

Talk to Yourself

Whenever you find out that self-pity is creeping in into your conscious being; tell yourself that you are not going to indulge in this expensive hobby, however self-gratifying it seems. It is always more empowering to choose self improvement. Talking to yourself will help you in devising ways to deal with self-pity. Experts tricks don’t help all the time. Sometimes think out on your own that how you are going to deal with self-pity

Devise A System for Yourself

When you become aware that you are nourishing this self-pity try to do things that help you deal with self-pity. You can choose any of the following:

• Exercise: Exercise helps you in getting rid of the negative thoughts. Toxins are also flushed out of your body when you exercise and so does the self pity.strikes you. But you can choose other healthy activities.
• Power of Choosing: Train your mind to think in different manner. You can always tell your mind that you will not chose victim-hood. It is not a cliché but really true that you should start counting your blessings. If you can’t think, then take a pencil and paper and write down your blessings. Blessings and self-pity are mutually exclusive events. So after jotting down be sure that you will not be feeling pity for yourself.
• Throwing Pity out, out of self-pity: Sometimes you can’t exercise or write down your blessings. Then try this powerful technique to get out of self pity. Close your eyes. Think about self-pitying thoughts with FULL force. Let them come. Concentrate on bundling all the self-pity thoughts. Then imagine of a well, toilet seat, dustbin, window or whatever catches your fancy. One by one, dump all the self-pity in that pit. ALL of it. Try doing this mental exercise whenever you feel the need. One day you won’t feel the need for this exercise.
• Stop Powering Others or Forgive and Forget: Again it may sound like a cliché but its not. Forgive and forget is the one of the most empowering thoughts you can adorn yourself with. Past is gone. No matter how much you want to go back there, the truth is you CAN’T. But present and future is in your hand. If you don’t forgive and forget that means you are giving unnecessary power to others to hold you down. You are giving others to remote control your life that too from distant past. Take that remote control in your hand. Let go of the old grudges and sorrowful happenings. You will fell lighter.
• Stop Comparing: You are your own unique person so how can you compare yourself with others? You will be bombard with good life ads from TV, magazines, newspapers etc. don’t let them define for you what is good for you. Do your own things. Find out what makes you happy and contented. Set out to achieve your own goals not what others are saying. So don’t pay attention to ads and feel like a loser. Embark on the path of self discovery.
• Create a Positive Force Around you: It is not something very difficult to achieve. You don’t have to be a highly spiritual person to possess a positive aura around you. You have to smile a lot, laugh a lot, develop a sense of humor, help others, get a hobby, spread warmth and nurture friendships. You can always cultivate these qualities. A healthy positive force helps in getting rid of self-pity.

Don’t lose perspective while you are trying to get out of self-pity. In the beginning self-pity will try to stay with you as a faithful companion but with a little bit of effort, you can get rid of it easily.

You can easily design your own WordPress them. There are many WordPress theme frameworks available that can be used to create a highly professional theme without much effort. You need to design your own WordPress theme when you either want a unique theme for your blog or you want to integrate your blog into your existing website, whether personal or business.

A good thing about WordPress is that you can modify every individual file, provided you have a decent knowledge of PHP — the web programming language in which WordPress has been written. With the advent of new WordPress blog theme frameworks you don’t even need to know programming. You can simply use the interface that comes with the theme framework and completely change the look of the theme. This blog post reviews one of such frameworks.

Tired of watching your cable TV and would like to switch to online, Internet based programming? The problem with convention cable TV is that you pay for all those channels you rarely watch, and then you are limited by the package offered by the cable TV company. Online TV on the other hand offers you unlimited choices from all over the world. Now that you can hook onto the Internet with your TV there is no reason to remain stuck with your outdated cable TV assortment.

Some online TV channels are free and some charge a minor fee. There are also geography based restrictions but with most online channels this is not a problem and with little bit of tweaking you can even access restricted online TV channels. And even nothing else, almost every major program is available on the good old YouTube. There are many streaming videos websites from where you can stream or download full movies for free. Anyway, this LifeHacker post tells you how you can ditch cable and watch TV shows and movies online.

Want people to be able to call you on Skype when they visit your WordPress blog? Do you want people to know that you are online on Yahoo! messenger and they can initiate a chat session by simply clicking the icon or the button on your blog? This is a very good way of encouraging your visitors to contact you immediately and interact with you, whether on personal or business level. Of to achieve this you need to know how to modify WordPress source files; for instance if you want to put the chat buttons on the side bar you should know how to edit sidebar.php or the widget associated with it.

Normally when you are online the two Yahoo! Messenger and Skype icons look like:

Yahoo! Messenger and Skype Icons when online

These icons change color or text when you are offline so that your visitors know when they can contact you directly.

Putting Yahoo! Messenger chat icon or button on your WordPress blog

Putting a Yahoo! Messenger chat icon is very easy. You can have it as a text link or a graphic link. In order to have a text link, just use this sort of HTML tag:

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<a href = 'ymsgr:sendim?your_yahoo_id'>Send me a message</a>

Replace “your_yahoo_id” with your actual Yahoo! id.

And if you want a graphic icon, use this:

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<a href = 'ymsgr:sendim?your_yahoo_id'><img src='http://opi.yahoo.com/online?u=your_yahoo_id&m=g&t=2 border=0></a>

The value of t can vary according to the sort of icon you want.

Putting Skype icon or button on your WordPress blog

Although you can easily log into your Skype account and find out how to put a Skype button on your website, if you don’t want to go to all that trouble, you can simply use this code:

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<script type="text/javascript" src='http://download.skype.com/share/skypebuttons/js/skypeCheck.js'>
</script> 
 
<a href='skype:your_skype_id?call'><img src='http://mystatus.skype.com/balloon/your_skype_id' style='border: none;' width='150' height='60' alt='My status' /></a>

You can customize the button by logging into your Skype account. Before you can use the Skype status icon you’ll need to change your Skype privacy settings.

Creating a FaceBook fan page is a great way to strengthen your presence…as a person and as a brand. It’s not just big business and corporations that create a FaceBook fan page, even individuals have them. If you are a famous person and you have more than 5000 FaceBook friends (the upper limit friends you can have over there) it’s better that you have a fan page because there is no limit to your fans.

It’s a bit cryptic when you try to create a fan page on FaceBook. You normally don’t see a link and you need to look around on various websites in order to come across the right link. Anyway, you need to go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. Of course you should be logged in before you can create your fan page.

Creating a FaceBook Fan Page - click to enlarge

As you can see, the information is pretty much straightforwards. You finally get this page and you can use various links to make it more presentable, like putting a logo etc.

FaceBook Fan Page - click to enlarge

You can get a more detailed description on this Sitepoint link.

If you want to improve your productively you need to be cautiously engaged in the activity. Many people don’t realize it, in order to improve your productivity you have to take well-targeted and planned steps, and this is more important when you work on your own and you don’t have tried-and-tested system to monitor your productivity.

In order to improve your productivity you first of all have to develop a routine for yourself. You must set some rules for yourself and you must adhere to them. Something like, set aside some time for checking emails and replying to them, and never check them at any other time. In the same manner, if you need to spend some time on various social media and social networking websites set aside some time and stick to that time.

There’s another way you can improve your productivity immensely: trace your most productive hours. We all have those (unless one is chronically ill or something). Schedule your most important jobs during those hours. Read more on this WebWorkDaily blog post titled Improved productivity: a 12-step program.

You can build trust by holding meaningful conversations with people and social media provides the best platform for it, provided you know how to leverage it. The Internet makes it difficult to trust people (because rarely there is direct contact) and it also makes it easier because there are so many ways you can communicate, social media being the primary means.

The greatest strength of social media in terms of building long-lasting trust is that the two way communication can be passive as well as active, and between any two individuals sitting at the opposite corners of the world. The key is, people should listen, assimilate, and then respond accordingly. This is how you build trust: you respond, you engage in timely conversations and you provide useful information as and when needed. On social media you cannot build trust by simply blowing your own horn…you have to listen and respond. You have to show interest in what others think about you, your brand, and other things in general.

Regularity is also another issue. You cannot just appear out of the blues and bombard people with your messages. You need to be consistent and regular. This doesn’t mean you need to spend all your waking hours posting updates on various social media websites. Even if you devote 30 minutes, devote them regularly. Read more on how to build trust with social media on this Mashable post.

When Google Buzz was initially launched it was termed as a “Twitter and Facebook” killer, but recently a top Google execute refuted this and stated that using Google Buzz is not like continuously posting updates and counter-updates; it’s about conversations. Conversations happen on Facebook and Twitter too, but the format and flow is a bit different from Google Buzz.

Anyway, conversation means lots of content generation and whenever there is content, you need to search for relevant information, and although Google Buzz comes from the biggest search company in the world, it’s search interface is less than impressive. This Search Engine Land article reviews a Google Buzz search service called Buzzy.com that helps you search for buzzes. As you can see on the website, it simply has a search box that can be used just like the Google search box. The SEL article also discusses a few parameters you can use to filter out searches and get the best possible resulte when you search Google Buzz.

Creating text shadows with CSS is a great way of creating cool text effects without having to use images. With abundant bandwidth and low hosting costs you may wonder why create text shadow effects with CSS if you can easily do that with graphic files? Well, you may not have a decent image editing or graphics software, and you may need to use the effect with a large chunk of text — using large chunks of text as image is bad for SEO.

If you’re wondering what is achieved by creating text shadows with CSS, just check out these CSS text shadows examples.

Just as a note, text shadows look better on semi-dark background if you are going to have a black shadow, unless the font you are using is very crisp and fine. So here we go:

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<style>
.shaded{
    background-color:#5B3D3D;
    display:block;
    padding:40px;
}
p.shadow{
    color:#C89696;
    font-size:2em;
    font-family:sans-serif;
    text-shadow: 1px 2px 1px #000;
    font-weight:bold;
 
}
</style>

And you use it like this:

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<div class="shaded">
    <p class="shadow">This is a CSS text<br>shadow example!</p>
</div>

CSS Text shadow effect

This is quite simple. You can also create a beveled text effect with minor changes.

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<style>
.shaded{
    background-color:#5B3D3D;
    display:block;
    padding:40px;
}
p.shadow{
    color:#4E3636;
    font-size:2em;
    font-family:sans-serif;
    text-shadow: 1px 2px 1px #E3C9C9;
    font-weight:bold;
 
}
</style>

We simply darken the font color and lighten the text shadow color. Here’s the result:

CSS Text shadow effect - beveled