Later today we will be launching a new weekly video series entitled: "TechieSmarts Tech ToolBox"! And it is exactly as it sounds! I receive emails all the time asking for recommendations for tools, software, etc. Some people ask what I prefer to use for certain circumstances or computer issues. So what better way to answer that question, than to just discuss it?
So with the following goals in mind:
#1- Offer reliable and valid information pertaining to various pieces of software (most open source) that I use.
#2- Help other people discover the "magic behind the curtain" per say.
#3- Let my readers and viewers help me learn their favorite tools!
As you can see this will be a two way street. As I hope to provide you (my loyal watchers/readers) with meaningful information on how to get things done; I also hope to better understand some of the things you guys like to use too. So please, do me a favor and leave some comments suggesting tools you use or questions on things I use and I will incorporate those into the weekly episodes. If you don't want to leave a public comment, feel free to email me at: help_me@techie.com
As a perk to our followers on the YouTube Channel each new episode will be posted there first for viewing. After a day or two the video will become available here on our website as well. So if you want to stay up to speed be sure to subscribe to the YouTube Channel or our website's RSS Feed! When new videos go live we will send out a Tweet about it!
This video is a response to some questions I have recently received concerning setting up a dual boot system. I have covered this topic in two other videos/blog posts. However, both of those videos approached this goal by two different methods as does this video. Previously we setup our dual boot with 'Wubi' and by using the 'Side-by-Side Install' method. But what happens if you are using an older Ubuntu Live CD or a different Linux Distro entirely? Those options may not necessarily work for you. In this case you'll need to manually setup the partitions and let Ubuntu install to a new, empty partition. So how do we do this?
There are a few things you need to do first. And these are good things to do even when setting up your dual boot via the ways we have already covered.
#1- Defrag your computer.
Why? Easy! When you use your computer on a daily basis files and data become fragmented. This simply means that the data is becoming somewhat scattered across the free space of your hard drive. This adversly effects your hard drive in that it may slow down read/write times of your drive in relation to your computing tasks and it can take up excess hard drive space.
By running a defrag on your hard drive, a lot of this fragmentation will be cleaned up. So in short, even if you have no plans to dual boot; running a defrag every once in a while is still a good idea.
#2- You'll more than likely want to have Windows installed first. The installation of GRUB tends to play along better if it can see Windows first.
#3- If your Windows install isn't a freshly installed version, you will want to backup any important data on your Windows machine. Just in case things go south or you accidentally format the wrong partition, etc. Believe me, things like this can happen if you're not cautious during these installs.
If you're good to go with the precautions mentioned above, then follow along with the video:
If you have any questions or comments feel free to drop us a comment below or on any of the social networks we use. You can also email me at: help_me@techie.com
I have recently received a batch of emails asking the same question: "I've downloaded the Linux .ISO file, now what do I do?". So in response to this question, I have made a video stepping through the process of using ImgBurn to make a ready-to-go Live Linux CD with your Operating System of choice. And then testing it to make sure it boots up.
There are numerous burning programs out there that can accomplish what we are trying to do in this video. However, I have personally been using ImgBurn since I first started playing around with Linux. For me, it gets the job done quickly and without other excess crap or bloat.
Just make sure you're speakers are turned down when the 'Job Complete' sound plays. It'll scare the crap out of you. lol
If you visit Distrowatch for your ISO file, be sure to pick the distribution you like best, and on that distribution's page find the links to the ISO file. In most cases there will be two files, one is a 32bit version and the other will be a 64bit version. Be sure to pick the appropriate version for your computer.
Once you have ImgBurn installed and have downloaded an ISO file to work with, have fun!
After what feels like a really long time, we are back in the saddle again with a app review for an awesome little Android app that just happens to also be free! It's named: AirDroid. Basically, the concept behind AirDroid is simple. It allows you to access the contents of your Android phone via a Wifi internet conncection just as if the phone was directly connected to the computer via a USB Cable.
This is accomplished by using a pretty slick looking web interface. Essentially here are the steps to using AirDroid.
1- Turn on your phone's Wifi Connection and connect to your router.
2- Launch the AirDroid app on your phone or tablet.
3- Press the blue 'Start' button.
4- Enter the IP Address in your computer's web browser address bar.
5- At the Web Login Screen type in the password given to you from the app.
6- Your in!
Once inside the AirDroid web interface, you can launch various file manager type dialog boxes to move files to your computer from the phone or vice-versa. If you need to backup anything like your music, pictures, and even apps; all this can be done quickly and easily. In my example, I was able to backup all of my pictures to my Desktop computer in the form of a .ZIP file for extraction later. And it took a couple of seconds to get it done.
The price of AirDroid is great considering it is free. But even if the devs decided to start charging for it, I'd happily pay a couple of dollars for this type of app.
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