Set Up a Web-Based Desktop with EyeOS

When you’re at a computer that’s missing a vital file or application, like an office workstation that’s locked down, a friend’s system or coffee shop computer, you can still get to a desktop that contains your essentials—on the web. A “webtop” is a virtual desktop that you access using only a browser, and it can include much of the stuff you’d expect on a local computer desktop: like file storage and management, a calendar, RSS reader, email client, and photo viewer. While there are several web desktops available these days, the free and open source EyeOS application is the most accessible, useful, and promising one out there. Follow along to see what a web-based desktop looks like, and how it can help you get things done when you’re locked down or out of pocket.

Read Complete Detailed Article : LifeHacker

Retrieve Any File on Your Home Computer via Email, Windows Edition

Lifehacker reader and blogger Shantanu Goel built a Microsoft Outlook macro to perform the same function for the Windows crowd. Like the original AppleScript, Shantanu’s macro requires a “magic word” in the subject of the email to trigger the macro; then you need to know the full path to the file you want to retrieve. If you’re not that familiar with your filesystem, it’s probably not the solution for you. If you are familiar with the paths to your important files, though, this macro offers a great way to retrieve the file you forgot, and you can retrieve it anywhere you have email access.

Remote File Access Through E-Mail [My Technophilic Musings via Shantanu.Goel]

Source : LifeHacker

Seamlessly Run Linux Apps on Your Windows Desktop

There’s no doubt that Linux—particularly Ubuntu—is a killer operating system full of excellent apps, but for about a million reasons, you’re stuck running Windows as your main operating system. We understand, these things happen. But what about all those killer Linux apps you’ve left behind when you decided to live the Windows life? Sure you could dual-boot or run Linux in the confines of a virtual machine window, but wouldn’t it be great if you could run those apps side-by-side with your Windows apps—like Linux users can do with WINE or OS X can do with Parallels or VMWare? You can, and today I’ll show you how to seamlessly run your favorite Linux applications directly in Windows with a free software called and Linux.

Read Complete  Article : LifeHacker

Browse and Play Your Ripped DVDs with DVD Play

Browse and play the DVDs you’ve ripped to your hard drive using DVD Rip with freeware application DVD Play. Just point DVD Play to the folder DVD Rip is saving your backed up DVDs to, and DVD Play displays them with thumbnails you can browse. Similar to how DVD Rip is a companion application to DVD Shrink, DVD Play works with the free video player VLC to easily play any of your ripped DVDs. Hit the jump for more details, the demo video, and to download DVD Play.

Read Complete Article : LifeHacker

Use Unix Commands in Windows’ Built-In Command Prompt

Lifehacker reader Michael writes in with a nifty tip that was lurking in our comments all along, but deserves to see the bright light of posting. If you’re already using the Unix-like Cygwin, it’s an easy hack to embed Cygwin’s commands into your standard Windows comand prompt; if not, it might be worth checking out the free download.The instructions follow after the jump.

These instructions are for Windows Vista, but fairly similar to the process in Windows XP (check out an XP-specific environment variable tutorial for more clarification.) The steps:

1. Find out where your Cygwin installation is on your hard drive and copy the path to its bin subfolder (usually C:Cygwinbin).
2. Open the Control Panel, hit “System and Maintenance,” then “System,” then “Advanced System Settings” on the left.
3. Click the “Environment Variables” button at the bottom of the new window.
4. Scroll through the “System Variables” list at the bottom of this window until you find the line for “Path,” then select it and hit “Edit.”
5. Add a semi-colon to the end of the “Variable Value” line (if it’s not there), then add the path to Cygwin’s bin directory. Hit OK on this and any windows opened along the way.

Now you’ve got better directory listing capabilities with “ls,” can SSH into a remote server right from the Windows prompt, and (if you’re a dual-booter or Unix/Linux enthusiast) avoid all those annoying confusions with Windows commands.

Source : LifeHacker

Create Your Own Cross-Platform Backup Server

Backing up your data on a regular basis is important, and turning a spare computer into a backup server is often the best way to make sure it gets done. But most methods require either a good deal of command-line learning or serve only one operating system. Not with Restore, a free, open-source backup system that can install or run from a live CD, work with any OS, and operate through a simple browser-based interface. Today I’ll demonstrate backing up a Windows laptop to an older desktop, but you’ll see how Restore can be easily molded to fit just about any home backup needs.

Read Complete Article : LifeHacker

Quickly Compose New Gmail Messages with Launchy

Lifehacker reader Samar liked the quick-write convenience of the GmailThis bookmarklet, but wanted to dig deeper to find a solution that would both work with his (and our own) favorite Windows keyword launcher, Launchy, and run whether or not Firefox (or any default Windows browser) was already open. We’re glad he did, because he’s come up with a one-line command that lets you open new Gmail composition windows from anywhere. The tip, and screenshots, after the jump.

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Get Organized with ‘Remember the Milk’

It’s no wonder the majority of Lifehacker readers voted Remember the Milk the best web-based task manager out there. Remember the Milk‘s got all the best features modern webapps have to offer: email/SMS/IM integration, tagging, advanced search, keyboard shortcuts and even offline access with Google Gears. Chances are you work across several computers and need a single, always-accessible place to consolidate your work, personal, school, and family to-do’s. Remember the Milk is a great way to do just that. Let’s take a closer look at Remember the Milk’s basic and more advanced features.

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DVD Rip Automates One-Click DVD Ripping

Windows only: Rip and back up any DVD to your hard drive with DVD Rip, a freeware Windows application that automates the entire DVD-to-hard-drive backup process. All you need to do is insert your DVD, run DVD Rip, and let it take care of the rest. Why? A while back I explained why I’d soured on optical media, the gist of which was the ease with with DVDs are damaged. Sick of scratched, skippy DVDs, I put together a simple AutoHotkey script that automated DVD rips in conjunction with a freeware application called DVD Shrink. I’ve since gone back and drastically improved the original DVD Rip application complete with options and improved automation.

DVD Rip Automated DVD Backup

License: DVD Rip is licensed under the GNU Public License. If you’d like to take a look at the source, you can download it here.

Read Complete Guide : LifeHacker

Run Your Personal Wikipedia from a USB Stick

You don’t have to lease server space or keep your home computer always on to access a personal web server—you can run a web, FTP, and database server straight from a USB drive. A slim web server package called XAMPP fits on a USB stick and can run database-driven webapps like the software that powers Wikipedia, MediaWiki. Almost two years ago you learned how to set up your “personal Wikipedia” on your home web server to capture ideas and track document revisions in a central knowledge repository. Today we’ll set up MediaWiki on your flash drive for access on any Windows PC on the go.

Read Complete Guide : LifeHacker

Watch Video Downloads on Your TiVo for Free

Your TiVo can play more than just television it’s recorded —it can also play video that you’ve downloaded to your computer from the internets, and it can do it without the pay-for TiVo Desktop Plus upgrade. If you’re a BitTorrent’ing, usenet’ing, podcatching, downloading fool, filling up your hard drive with movies, television episodes, and video clips you want to watch from the couch instead of the computer chair, you can do just that if you’ve got a TiVo sitting under your flat screen in the living room. Using the free Videora TiVo Converter for Windows, here’s how to watch your video downloads from the comfort of your couch without forking over extra cash.

Read Complete Guide Here : LifeHacker

Migrate All Your Old Gmail to a New Gmail Address

Have you ever felt the need to migrate ur contents from ur old gmail to a new gmail id.

LifeHacker has an interesting article on how to do it.

Gmail’s easy-to-use Mail Fetcher feature and POP3 access, you can easily import all of your old emails to your new, respectable Gmail address with a few very simple steps.

Read Complete Guide Here : LifeHacker

Set Up Real-Time, Bulletproof Backup Drive Redundancy with RAID

Hard drives fail, and they do it much more often than we’d like to think. Even if you’ve set up automated hard drive backups, you’re not necessarily getting the best backup bang for your buck—especially if your operating system’s main hard drive fails. Even if you’ve been backing up your important files, you’ll still need to reinstall your OS and go through the pain of copying your files back to your new hard drive, installing new applications, and setting up your system to how you had it. There’s a better way, my friends. With a RAID 1 array, you’ll always have a perfect backup of your hard drive so that—in the event that one drive fails—the other will seamlessly pick up where it left off. That means no reinstalling your operating system, no reinstalling applications, and no time lost in the event of a hard drive failure.

Read Complete Article Here : LifeHacker 

Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

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Two months ago I walked through how to build a Hackintosh Mac on the cheap using PC parts. Since that post, the OSx86 scene has changed rapidly, and now you can install Leopard on your computer about as easily as installing Leopard on a Mac—no command line hacking required. In addition, the resulting installation is—theoretically, at least—can be upgraded without fear of breaking. As if the simplicity of the installation weren’t already enough, the new installation tools fix any problems I’ve had in the past (for example, I no longer need to keep my install DVD in the drive to boot into OS X), and support the Wi-Fi card on my motherboard out-of-the-box. In short, it’s a winner.

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Read Complete Article Here :  LifeHacker

Build a Home Theater PC for Less than $200

When expenses are a big deal, curbing spending is a wise option. If you’re in the market for a new computer (or even just a home theater system), blogger Paul Stamatiou suggests hardware that can comprise of one of the cheapest and smallest DIY computers I’ve seen to date. Your motherboard will cost a low $65. The RAM is about $20, and the 250GB hard drive is also $65. However, if you scout for good deals online, you may get them for cheaper than the recommended prices. The design doesn’t require a case, according to Paul (but you can buy a decent mini-ITX case which will fit this motherboard for an extra $65), and some may argue that it’s not as good as an HTPC as it is a spare PC, but as a cheap alternative, you really can’t go wrong.

DIY: 200 Dollar PC [Paul Stamatiou]

Source : LifeHacker

Intrusion Detection: Snort, Base, MySQL, and Apache2 On Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) (Updated)

This tutorial is based on another howto written by DevilMan, however I didn’t like the idea of manually compiling every package or the use of a GUI to get the software installed. This howto will work on a Gutsy Server or Gutsy desktop. With that said some of this howto is a direct copy from the original.In this tutorial I will describe how to install and configure Snort (an intrusion detection system (IDS)) from source, BASE (Basic Analysis and Security Engine), MySQL, and Apache2 on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). Snort will assist you in monitoring your network and alert you about possible threats. Snort will output its log files to a MySQL database which BASE will use to display a graphical interface in a web browser.

Read Complete Tutorial : Here

TrueCrypt With GUI On Ubuntu 7.10

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer

This document describes how to set up TrueCrypt with GUI on Ubuntu 7.10. TrueCrypt is a free open-source encryption software for desktop usage.

This howto is a practical guide without any warranty – it doesn’t cover the theoretical backgrounds. There are many ways to set up such a system – this is the way I chose.

Read Complete Tutorial : Here

Three Ways To Access Linux Partitions (ext2/ext3) From Windows On Dual-Boot Systems

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme

If you have a dual-boot Windows/Linux system, you probably know this problem: you can access files from your Windows installation while you are in Linux, but not the other way round. This tutorial shows three ways how you can access your Linux partitions (with ext2 or ext3 filesystem) from within Windows: Explore2fs, DiskInternals Linux Reader, and the Ext2 Installable File System For Windows. While the first two provide read-only access, the Ext2 Installable File System For Windows can be used for read and write operations.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

Read Complete Tutorial : Here

Monitoring WordPress (And Other Database-Backed PHP Apps) With Hyperic HQ

This howto is for users and admins of PHP/MySQL web applications who are looking for a way to monitor the data from these applications. This howto is not geared specificially to monitoring the system resource usage of the web server and database, although that is one piece of the puzzle. Instead, the focus of this howto is using Hyperic HQ’s SQL Query plugin to monitor the data contained within the backing database, in this case the number of posts, comments and users from a WordPress blog deployment. Then, we will view this data in the context of system resource usage, to help admins correlate the information from the WordPress plugin we’re about to create with whatever other data they’re monitoring from that system.

This howto assumes that you are at least familiar with Hyperic HQ. For more information on how to install the HQ monitoring system, see support.hyperic.com. Also, note that this was created with Hyperic HQ 3.2 Beta 4, but the process is very similar for HQ 3.1.x.

Read Complete Tutorial : Here

Simple Home File Server (Based On Ubuntu)

Version 1.0

Author: Xam

This tutorial explains how to turn an old PC with additional hard disks into a simple home file server. The file server is intended for home use. The home file server is accessible by Windows and Linux computers in the home network.

The existing tutorials do not describe how to add additional disks or have a complex authorization or access procedure. Freenas (www.freenas.org) does have too many features for home users and more important it does not support the NTFS format.

This Home File Server can work with hard disks formatted in NTFS. So when you need or want to move the hard disk into a new computer, they are accessible by Windows and most Linux operating systems.The server is built with Ubuntu Server 7.10 & Samba. Do not use Ubuntu Server 5.04 LTS because this version does not support the latest SATA Controllers (in an Pentium II or III you likely want to use a PCI SATA RAID controller to attach SATA hard disks).

I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

Read Complete Tutorial : Here