Hacksar

Everywhere you look, new technology is emerging. Ranging from Blu-Ray disks to FiOS HDTV, the rage these days is quality, quality, quality. But, how important is it, really? Do you NEED to see Laurence Fishburne’s pockmarked face in The Matrix? I’d hope not. Thankfully, plain old DVDs are still here, and are a LOT easier to make backups (aka burn) of.

You may have a booming collection of a variety of DVDs, but may be too frightened to actually remove them from their case, lest they become riddled with fingerprints, dust, and scratches. Many DVDs come with encryption and copy-protection on them, but there are many honest people out there who simply want to make backups of their legitimately purchased DVDs, such as if they are going on vacation, etc. There exist MANY programs out there that can simply make copies of DVDs 1:1; however, that may not be good enough. Virtually all movie DVDs nowadays are dual-layer (meaning they hold 9.4 GB of data), while most DVD burners / blank DVDs you find are single layer (hold 4.7 GB of data). Your computer is your best friend; use it to make backup DVDs of your precious authentic ones without busting your wallet with extremely expensive dual layer disks. Keep reading for the guide on how to both set up and install the necessary programs (one-time) and then the short instructions for the actual copying process.

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You may be an avid fan of iTunes, using it for its MP3 indexing and playback capabilities. However, it can become cumbersome to have to switch back to the window just to skip a song in shuffle playback mode. I too have had this problem, and thankfully, came across an ingenious solution after hours of scouring the internet.

Allow me to introduce you to AutoHotKey. AutoHotKey (AHK) is a small program that let’s you create your own programs, macros, and scripts. You can record and send keystrokes, and even tap into the Windows API with AHK. (This means you can program things easily, as you will in this guide.) Keep reading for the full guide on how to get AHK set up, and get the iTunes Controller script installed.

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If you have even some computer skills, you probably have been asked to “fix somebody’s computer”. Actually, the better you are with computers, the more people that ask you to fix their computer. This can be fine and usually straightforward if you have actual access to the computer… but it can be next to impossible when you have to do it to a remote computer. Many people think they can simply ask you to fix it over the phone, and you somehow have magical powers to know exactly what’s going on and how to fix it. This becomes especially difficult when they have no idea what they’re talking about.

“THE THING IN THE BACK ON THE THING ISN’T THERE AND I CAN’T CLICK IT TO MAKE THE THING POP UP.”

If they’re asking for help then you most likely have no chance in asking them to install a remote control software, log in to their computer, and then fix their computer. However, there’s a way to be able to both view AND control their computers remotely without them installing anything. All they need is a web browser and the ability to type in the URL you give them. Adobe’s ConnectNow at Acrobat.com is a godsend for all techies. Keep reading for the guide.

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If you are in any sort of math or science course, chances are, you are allowed to use a graphing calculator to help you. One of the best graphing calculators out there is the TI-89, capable of doing – well… anything. Whether it’s simple computations like 2+2 or solving complex three-dimensional differential surfaces, the TI-89 can do it. Many students swear by it, and if you don’t you may want to convert and become a fellow lover of the calculator.

However, many times, it seems like more effort to reach all the way to your backpack and pull out the TI-89… but you can’t exactly solve that fourth-order, seven-variable system of equations in your head and you surely don’t want to do it on paper… that’s where an emulator comes in handy. An emulator is basically the calculator, except it runs on your computer. Keep reading for the info on how to get this incredible emulator up and running on your computer.

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If you are even a slightly seasoned user of the internet, I’m certain that you have been greeted by the “cannot connect to webpage” or “network connection has timed out” message many, many times. Or, worse yet, you’re a webmaster and visit your site only to find that it seems to be “down”. What many people do first is to just ask a friend “Hey, does this site work for you?” and proceed to give them the link. However, this is grossly inefficient (finding an online friend can be difficult at odd hours, etc) and you will eventually become the “guy who can’t see if the website is working or not and always has to ask”. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to be that guy. So, instead there are some other tricks you can do to see if the site is actually down or if it’s just you. Keep reading for further info.

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Does the clutter of the taskbar below look familiar to you?

If you’re anything like me, your taskbar probably is constantly cluttered. I find that whenever I’m working on some intense project (whether it’s making a website or just some research paper), my taskbar seems to just explode with various programs. They’re all different programs, so I can’t even group them; eventually, it becomes difficult to even read what file is open where, so sometimes even just alt-tabbing to the right program becomes difficult. Many times, you don’t need all of the programs at the same time, but they still need to be running. (The classic example is iTunes, or whatever music player you use. You don’t actually look at the program if it’s on random shuffle all, but it still needs to be running.)

Thankfully, there’s an incredibly light program called TrayIt! that lets you minimize any program to the system tray. (That’s the little set of icons found next to the clock in the bottom right of Windows.) Keep reading for the step-by-step guide on how to set up and use this cool program.

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If you’ve just started using BitTorrent (perhaps thanks to our guide), you may not be fond of the whole “allow people to upload while you download” thing. It kills your bandwidth, and can make using the internet at all difficult, especially if you don’t have a powerful internet connection. It can also pose a great problem if your internet has upload/download limits, and you don’t want to just keep seeding after you finish your download, and thus use up your upload limit rather quickly. (Most places, such as colleges, that use upload/download limits set the upload limit to be much lower than the download limit, so you really need to watch out for that when torrenting).

Here, you’ll learn about how to tweak your settings in uTorrent (our favorite torrent client) to minimize your upload amount and still get the best download speeds you can. Keep reading for the guide.

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If you’ve always wanted to use torrents, but are absolutely TERRIFIED by the prospect of opening your mailbox to find a Cease & Desist, or worse yet, the FBI (they can mail anything nowadays), then you should check out PeerGuardian2.

PeerGuardian2 is a free, open-source program that runs in the background of your system and blocks IP addresses based on an IP blacklist. Generally, this IP blacklist is automatically downloaded and contains multitudes of government IPs. So, you can torrent with the safety of not accidentally connecting to a government facility and possibly incriminating yourself. It self updates, and runs with minimal system performance impact, so it’s easily the best choice for an additional layer for you security-conscious folks. Keep reading for a simple step-by-step guide on how to get PeerGuardian2 up and running.
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