Ichthux is an operating system aimed at Christian users. It is based on Kubuntu in order to provide the best desktop environment of the moment, together with Christian programs and settings. For a brief graphical tour of Ichthux, check out some screenshots.
If you are considering becoming a Podcaster, then, boy do I have some software for you! Dewd! You gotta see this! There are packages out there that dont do what this does and they cost hundreds of dollars! This is Open Source (and therefore, FREE!) Check it out:
PodProducer Open Source Podcast Studio
Repaired Link!
This software is updated regularly, so keep checking, as he keeps making improvements. The recording is clean and clear, and it has a lot of great features I am playing with it to learn more, because there is currently no documentation, but it is falling down easy anyway. Try it, youll like it!
This weeks Geek Software of the Week requires a few caveats! First, you should only use it to download TV programs that you legally have rights to, second, you have to have a BitTorrent client like Azureus installed prior to installing this software. TVTad allows you to select a TV program and then download it every week! So, imagine setting it to receive Stargate SG-1 and every week, you will get the episode on your computer! Cool! This is the beginning of IPTV, one of my favorite cool ideas that folks are talking about today!
Check it out! This is very cool lets just hope the RIAA and the networks dont kill it!
So, you like Internet Radio, Streaming Podcasts, Internet Music, etc., etc. You REALLY wish you could record it. Well, now you can! If you can hear it on your system, you can now record it as an MP3 file! Very cool! And, of course, very FREE!
Download, install, and enjoy the freedom of recording the audio on your computer! Oh, you can also use it to search for, and find, any audio file on your computer. Very nice
OK, I have long given you Geek Software of the Week recommendations this may be Geek Software of the YEAR! VPN (or Virtual Private Networks) can be hard to configure, use and manage. Also some VPN configurations can be less secure than others. Now, we have a SIMPLE, FREE and VERY SECURE VPN for users to connect two (or more) computers (and therefore LANs) to one another even behind firewalls and NAT addressing schemes. It is multi-platform (Windows and Linux now, shortly for the Mac), and can be useful for Road Warriors in hotels that need to connect to a system behind a firewall safely. DEWD! This is SO cool!
Sign up for free now, and enjoy secure VPN computing! This totally rocks! Also, use Steve Gibsons Super Secure Private Password creator to further secure this connection. That link is available here:
OK, so I like web based e-mail because, unlike Microsoft Outlook, web based e-mail isnt as prone to open virus attachments, and have security issues in general. I use Squirrelmail on my own Linux servers, which is a great Open Source IMAP package using PHP. I also like Gmail, which is very handy free e-mail service and offers large storage and searchable e-mail. However, one thing that is nice about Outlook, or even Mozilla Thunderbird, is that when you get an e-mail, you get instant notification if you are logged in to your PC. You dont have to remember to check your e-mail via a web site. Well, as usual, some kind individual has created a free, Open Source utility that does just what I need! It is called PopTray. It sits in your Windows tray, and checks your e-mail on any server, and then pops up and notifies you of incoming e-mail. (Thus the name, PopTray, get it?)
PopTray Open Source E-mail Notifier
Download it and configure it as you like.
Features:
Rules that identify a message according to your criteria, then does one of these actions:
Plug-in Support:
As a geek I unzip and zip a lot! Now, along comes a totally FREE, and very useful, archive tool! Check this out!
IZArc is the ultimate archive utility supports many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support.
So this one does it all! I got rid of several tools and now just use IZArc! Cool!
I used to really like Musicmatch. Then it got bigger, and heavier and finally started doing things that I just cant stand, like showing ads, asking you to buy add-ons, etc. Yeesh! Then, I downloaded an update, and ever since it displayed an error every time my system was rebooted. I had had enough! So, I removed Musicmatch! But, then, I had to play my MP3s one at a time. Enter MediaMonkey!
Now, I can play albums, or collections of media again! And, MediaMonkey has assembled their free jukebox-like player using Open Source software bundled into their software! Cool!
Manage a music library consisting of small to very large collections (50,000+ ) of audio files and playlists*, whether theyre located on your hard drive, CDs, or a network. Organize, browse, or search music by Genre, Artist, Year, Rating, etc., and never waste your time trying to find mp3s you know you have. MediaMonkey is the music organizer for the serious collector.
*Supports MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, MPC, WAV, CDA, M3U, PLS, etc.
Synchronize with iPods and other Portable Audio Devices in seconds. Simply configure MediaMonkey once, and then click the Synchronize button to synchronize tracks and related properties including Album Art, ratings, play history, and playlists with a broad range of portable devices. With Volume Leveling, the tracks will even play back on your device at consistent volumes!
This is a GOOD ONE!
Windows XP does many strange and mysterious things by default. It reports a great deal of info back to its Evil Microsoft Masters in Redmond. So, enter xp-AntiSpy!
The xp-AntiSpy is a little utility that lets you disable some built-in update and authentication features in Windows XP. For example, theres a service running in the background which is called Automatic Updates. I dont know what this service transfers from my machine to other machines on the internet, especially the MS ones. So I play it safe and disable such functions. If you like, you can even disable these functions manually, by going through the System and checking or unchecking some checkboxes. This will take you approximately half an hour. But why waste time when a little neat utility can do the same in 1 minute? This utility was successfully tested by lots of users, and was found to disable all the known Suspicious Functions in Windows XP.
PC Wizard is a powerful utility designed especially for detection of hardware, but also to do additional analysis. Its able to identify a large number of system components and it supports the latest technologies and standards. This tool is periodically updated (usually once per month) in order to provide most accurate results.
PC Wizard 2006 is also designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It works with many kinds of hardware, giving results for CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.
This is an amazing utility, to be totally free! It is as good as any paid utility I have seen check it out!
Portable OpenOffice. That is, the full OpenOffice Suite, designed to be run entirely off of a thumbdrive! Thats programs and data! Wow! This way, you can take your favorite office suite, and your data, with you, no matter what computer you use!
I like it, because if I have to sit down at someone elses system, I can have my environment to work in, without having to open their software (and use the Evil Empires package!) Very cool! And, while you are at it, check out the other applications that are listed that can be run entirely from a thumbdrive!
PortableApps.com is a community site devoted to the development, promotion and use of portable applications. The site was created by John T. Haller, the developer behind numerous portable applications (like Portable Firefox and Portable OpenOffice.org) as a way to centralize the knowledge and development efforts of multiple portable application efforts. Neat idea!
This one is worth every penny I didnt have to pay for it! No bloated Nero to burn an ISO file to a CD! Now, you have a simple Windows Wizard-like interface to burn ISOs! It really, really does truly rock!
ISO Recorder is a tool (power toy) for Windows XP, 2003 and now Windows Vista, that allows (depending on the Windows version) to burn CD and DVD images, copy disks, make images of the existing data CDs and DVDs and create ISO images from a content of a disk folder.
Dariks Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
DBAN comes in a floppy and CD-ROM version. And, of course, it is totally FREE!
PLEASE NOTE: As Darkmoon points out in a comment to this post, there is NO CONFIRM option, once you choose to wipe your drive with DBAN, it will just WIPE IT! And, there is no return from this! Your data will be GONE! You have been warned! Dont come crying to the Doctor! [Grin!]
By the way, if you are looking for a utility to simply delete files securely, WITHOUT wiping the hard drive, check out Simple File Shredder available here:
Most of you that read this Blog, or listen to the Podcast, know that I dont like Symantec Norton Anti-virus, and other Norton Software. Way back in the day they were OK, but these days, Norton is almost like a virus itself! Why do I say that? Well, have you ever tried to completely remove Norton Anti-Virus from a system? Dewd! It is a pain! And, if anything is left of it in place, other Anti-virus software gets hosed! I wonder why? Hummmmm well, anyway if you have ever tried to do an un-install of Norton, you KNOW it is not as simple as Add-Remove Programs!
Apparently, Symantec knows this is a problem as well! So, they have a SPECIAL program that they give to customers that have problems removing the programs! Uh huh, you are probably asking the same thing that I did that is, If they can create a program that can completely remove the offending software, why not just make the Add-Remove Programs Wizard work right the first time? An interesting question, eh wot?
So, here is a link to the secret Norton un-installer:
A nice tool to add to your arsenal! Now, you can get rid of an expensive pretender and use the FREE Grisoft AVG, which actually works! By the way, heres the link to THAT:
Naomi:The recent post about the Bush Administration wanting Google search info to fight porn on the Internet, prompts this find for my Software of the Week. For all you parents that want to block bad sites on the Internet it can be EXPENSIVE! But, never fear! There is a FREE software package that is actually pretty neat! It is small, doesnt drag down system performance, and effectively blocks sites by shutting down the browser (or other application) that accesses certain contect:
Naomi is able to constantly monitor all internet connections, protecting children from inappropriate online material - such as obscene or violent contents; pornography, pedophilia and erotism in the form of images or texts; sites that popularize drugs; gambling games; terrorism; hate propaganda; occultism; sects; blasphemy, etc.
Naomi does not rely on a simple list of banned sites; instead, it examines in real-time all the data being transmitted and received through any internet application - such as web browers, chat programs, news readers, etc.
The filtering technology employed in Naomi features:
It is finally official! OpenOffice 2.0 is out, and it rocks! In case you have been living under a rock somewhere, OpenOffice is a really great, and totally FREE Open Source Office Suite that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux! This release has many things to recommend it, especially the addition of its own database (similar to Access.) As before, it will read and write all Microsoft Office formats. You owe it to yourself to download and use this new editon! Here is the link:
This will also be our official Geek Software of the Week recommendation
This weeks Geek Software is Paint.NET. It is a class project from MIT that has continued since being developed in a .NET programming class. It is written in C#. The idea was to make a better Microsoft Paint. They added in layers, and it has grown to nearly (but not quite) Photoshop proportions! The nice thing is unlike Photoshop, it is FREE!
You wont regret checking it out!