Mysticgeek’s Realm

One thing I like to do is point out the extra software applications try to sneak in during installation.  Especially it that software can definitely be considered "Crap-Ware".  I have found a couple of instances of this while reinstalling Trillian on my Vista machine. 

The first example to rear its head is the Weather Channel Desktop.  Unless you are a extreme weather enthusiast there is really no reason to install.  Even if you are a major weather enthusiast, there are a lot better applications out there to choose from.  Just uncheck the box next to the license agreement.

After that the next one to show up is the Ask Toolbar.  Unless your default search engine is Ask … again there is not reason to install this.  I make sure and uncheck both boxes on this screen and continue with set up.

In my opinion Trillian is one of the coolest IM clients out there, and remembering to take time to read the installation screens can save unneeded software removal at a later time. 

I have played with various distributions of Linux for the past 5 years.  I would dabble in Red Hat running a web server, install Mandriva (Mandrake at the time) in a dual boot with XP, and actually build a kiosk for a tech school in my area using Suse Linux.  I have also ran various versions on Virtual Machines over Windows many times.  I have always had a love / hate relationship with Linux.  When I could get things working it was great!  However, when I just needed something like my SoundCard to work, I would find that 2 hours of compiling a driver  just wasn't worth it.

I have never been able to do a complete switch to Linux as my main OS because of some of the issues that go along with it.  Last week I decided to give it another go.  No dual boot system this time either I thought.  Anytime I have tried that in the past, I would always end up booting the Windows partition out of pure geek laziness.  There are a plethora of Distro's available now, but I decided to go with Ubuntu.  I guess I went with Ubuntu because of the tremendous amount of online support available.  Also, The Geek has a complete section of useful Ubuntu and Linux tips! 

I went with the default gnome GUI at first.  I was able to easily maneuver my way through Ubuntu pretty well.  When it came to installing drivers for my Nvidia card, it was an easy and painless process.  I also have a Creative X-Fi sound card … not so lucky with this.  There is actually a beta driver for X-Fi cards from Creative Open Source, but the bad thing for my set up is it does not currently support 5.1 surround sound.  I am sticking to my integrated sound for now and will let my X-Fi card sits and collects dust for now.

I was really enjoying gnome and my new Linux environment, when I decided I allow myself the experience of KDE.  Installing KDE with the default gnome desktop environment is easy enough, just follow The Geek's Guide.  I have to admit that the KDE environment is a great choice if you are ditching Windows.  KDE offers a lot of functionality right out of the box.  With the release of KDE 4.0 it gets even better.  With a beautiful interface, familiar start menu, and the ability to browse directories as Root with just a click and a lot more.  I am now a Kubuntu fan … and now that I have decided this, I am going to do a clean install of the Kubuntu 64 system and keep going. 

I found a cool site today while cruising around the Internet.  Stage.FM is a great site to find new unsigned artists and bands.  This site is a social network for independent, unsigned musicians and fans.  There are several genres of music to choose from, and a lot of it is available for free download or a nominal fee (20 cents).

It is free and easy to set up an account.  Once your account is set up, you can start browsing through all of the music.  Add favorite bands and share your playlist with other members. If you are in a band or want to manage a band there is a control panel set up for that as well. 

Choose the genre of music you like the best and scroll through the various artists and click on the play icon.  You get a cool flash based player which resembles iTunes.  I ended up loading the player with about 15 different songs from various bands.  Once you play a song you can go back and listen to it again and again.  You can also share your playlist with others.

This is a social music site much like Last.FM but with independent artists.  If you have a band or a musician you can upload your recordings as well.  This is an example of a page I made for my band.

I honestly love the idea of this site!  Unlike myspace which is full of the world's worst code and is extremely slow … Stage.FM allows you to quick and easily find new artists and share your favorites.

One of the features in Vista Ultimate is Complete PC Backup and Restore. This allows for easier system backup of your hard disk, essentially making a clone or image of the current state of the hard drive. This feature is available in Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate versions of Vista.

Complete PC Backup and Restore should not be confused with Automatic Backup which only backup up files and settings. Auto backup is available on all versions of Vista except for Home Basic.

Today we will look at one option to create an image of a hard drive with Vista Home Premium using the free utility DriveImage XML.  **These Screenshots were taken on an XP machine … the application works the same for both Vista and XP**

DriveImage XML allows you to back up files and complete disk images into an XML file which you can use to restore the copy later.

The application is extremely easy to use. Just follow through the steps with the Drive Backup Wizard.

It is as easy as finding the drive you want to back up and deciding where to back up the XML image to. DriveImage XML even allows you to back up the disc while you are still using it.

Progress of the back up is shown by sector.

Additional features include disk to disk backup and you can use Task Scheduler to automate the process for you. Backing up to a network drive is also available. DriveImage XML is free and is a superb disk imaging solution to add to Vista Home Premium. This application also works with Windows XP.

Windows Vista certainly takes a lot of system resources and we need to squeeze out all the performance we can! Here is a quick tip on how to increase the performance of any hard drive internal or external.

Double click My Computer and right click on the drive you want to perform better and select Properties.

The Disk Properties box will open. Click on the Hardware tab and then the Properties button.

Finally, mark Optimize for performance and place a check next to Enable advanced performance. Click OK and close out of the rest of the windows.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this site from albinoblacksheep.com.  This is a flashed based spoof on Windows XP.  You can play around with it and get some pretty hilarious messages.  I thought the one on the image below about Quicktime was pretty funny.  Who knows … this one might be old news to some of you, but for those who have not seen this … it's worth wasting time on for a good laugh.

The Albino Black Sheep have many other funny skits on their site … check them out!

Today I ran into a new version of CC Cleaner v 2.06 which includes the Yahoo Toolbar with the installation.  According to the instructions this allows you to use CC Cleaner from your browsers toolbar.  It seems there are a lot of companies trying to sneak their software into various popular freeware applications lately.  I covered one of them in a previous post.

I went ahead and installed CC Cleaner v 2.06 with the Yahoo toolbar just for the fun of it.  Before doing this I set my default browser to IE 8 Beta 1.  Sure you it will allow you to run CC Cleaner from the browser … but how necessary is this?  I have never been a fan of extra toolbars and Yahoo's is certainly no exception.

I suppose if you are already a huge fan of Yahoo's services and want to keep dibs on everything while you surfing the web, you might want to install the Yahoo toolbar, there certainly is plenty to choose from.  All of your favorite Yahoo applications are easily accessible.

If you want to remove the Yahoo toolbar and not CC cleaner you will need to go into Add / Remove programs and uninstall both instances of Yahoo.

One more thing to note … when installing CC Cleaner v 2.06 with the Yahoo toolbar, there is an option to not include the toolbar at all with the installation.  Just be sure to uncheck the box before hitting Install.

However, if you still want to use your favorite PC performance utility and are not a fan of any kind of toolbar and prefer not to deal with the hassle of uninstalling, I recommend downloading CC Cleaner Slim.  Which is only a 650KB download and none of the hassle of uninstalling the Yahoo toolbar.

Last week I wrote about the hassles I experienced with installing Internet Explorer 8 on my XP machine at work. Overall I have not had too many problems with it … mainly because my default browser is Firefox! However I did run into an annoyance with this beta I would like to point out.

I went to the Creative Autoupdate site to see if there were new drivers for my sound card. I was created by the following message.

No problem right? I will just click on the Emulate IE 7 button …

Then IE told me I needed to restart the browser, which I did … unlike Firefox IE did not automatically restart … it just sat there. I then closed out of IE 8 Beta 1 and went back in … eh … then you have to browse back to the page that did not work.

I lazily searched and found this Add-on for IE 8. This puts an icon on the Taskbar that lets you report a page that does not display with IE 8 Beta 1. Just one annoyance I have found so far … but I can't complain too much since it is a beta release after all. I am curious what types of issues any of you have found with this release. Post away folks!

I am starting off a series of articles today to show you how to get the extra functionality of Windows Vista Ultimate without spending the outrageous cost of $399. In fact we are not going to spend one cent more in currency, the only thing we will have to spend is some time. Hopefully through this series you will be able to spend as little of your own time as necessary by using my easy to follow tutorials.

Before we begin, lets take a look at what Vista Ultimate offers that Home Premium does not. Here is a chart of features included in Ultimate that Home Premium lacks out of the box. Keep in mind that this refers to Pre-SP1. Throughout this series I will include additional SP1 information.

The list above is what Microsoft published as a guide to help the consumer choose the version of Vista that is right for them. Now, there are even more astonishing differences between Vista Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Business etc. I mean, why on earth would an OS not include everything on one edition? These features (or lack thereof) between each version are simply not worth the hundreds of dollars in price difference. To give you an idea of what topics will be covered in this series, check out this list of what we can add to make Home Premium as good if not BETTER than Vista Ultimate. This is ONLY a partial list.

Also, I am working on developing a stable work around for Vista Home Premium's lack of ability to join a domain. Most home users probably wouldn't utilize anything like this … but I love a challenge. So stick with me! Over the next days and weeks I will be covering some very cool information!

Disk Imaging:

Using DriveImage XML 

Are you sick and tired of Windows trying to save you from yourself by asking you far too many times "Are You Sure You Want To Do That?" I think this is one of the more prominent annoyances of any Windows operating system. Thankfully, there is a small utility out there which allows the dialog boxes to be automatically closed. I have been using this program for several years and thought I should write about it in case you are unfamiliar.

PTFB (Push The Freak'n Button) from Technology Lighthouse is a small application which you can train to automatically hit "OK" or "Yes" in those pesky dialog boxes. Using the utility is very straight forward. Simply launch the application and drag the selection tool over the confirmation button on the dialog box you want to have answered. Add as many as you need then click the Start Watching button.

PTFB will run in the background watching for the selected dialog boxes to close. Depending on your preferences you can also change the amount of time PTFB waits until it closes the dialog box. There is also a PRO version which includes more features like a macro recorder and more flexible scheduling.

Download PTFB