Manoi Go robot break-dances its way to the top of Christmas lists worldwide

If you could actually buy one, I’d already own twelve.

As we’ve all come to accept, robots will eventually become far too clever for their own good, revolt, and throw humanity into eternal servitude. Until that point though, lets take a minute to salute our Japanese cousins who have humiliated our future robot-overlords once again, this time by programming one to break-dance.

The scientists who built the robot consulted professional dancers to fine-tune the bot’s uncanny moves.

Peter Crouch was as yet unavailable for comment.

Make Your Own TV Guide With FreeGuide

There are plenty online TV listing services that detail what programs are showing in your area. Then again, you probably don’t care what’s on every single channel. Create a person

alized TV guide with FreeGuide and skip The Flossing Network.

FreeGuide grabs data on only the channels you’re interested in and displays them in a list or grid format. You enter your region, ZIP code, and time zone while setting up the software, as well as whether you’ll be using a free or paid channel listing guide, and FreeGuide sets up your personalized listing window. You can search for shows by channel, time, title, or sub-title, and highlight favorites so you can find them quickly in listings in the future.

FreeGuide is available as a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It requires at least the Java 2 Runtime Environment v1.6 or higher to work, and Mac users will also need to grab XMLTV

How do you track your favorite TV shows? Let us know in the comments.

Works for many countries including Argentina, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, European Union (Various), Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland*, Italy, Latin America (Various), Norway, Portugal, Reunion, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

FreeGuide

15 Best Places for Free Stock Photos Online

I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a look at the prices on some non-stock photography sites (pictures of Gummy bears for $769.00 anyone?), but they reach far beyond the budget of the typical designer/developer. However, many places online allow you to obtain high-quality stock photos for free, giving the average starving artist a chance to create wonderful works of art/design without having to use next month’s rent on stock photos.

Dedicated free stock photo sites

1. stock.xchng

stock.xchng is all free, all the time. Their advanced search is only basic by paid site standards, but hey, did I mention that the service is free? They have over 350,000 images contributed by 30,000 photographers. The one downside to getting photos from stock.xchng is that they’re quite well known, so designers may find that the smaller subset of quality images on site are quite heavily used in many other places, making it difficult to be original. Stock.xchng is a Hungarian site and was founded in 2001.

one of the most popular paid stock photo sites – iStockphoto, sponsors them. There’s a good selection of illustrations and vectors for free on stock.xchng, which you just don’t get with the big free sites.

Aimed at: Web designers and web developers, illustrators, print designers

2. Freerange Stock

Their admirable goal is to provide stock photography for both commercial and non-commercial use, for free. They give away their collections with the hope that they are useful and enjoyed.

A small team of in-house professional photographers supplies the photos in the site. After each upload, the color and image is sharpened and they are keyword-tagged by professional photographers. This is a great place to get high impact and good looking pictures, but the focus is on quality, not quantity so the collection isn’t as big as other sites.

Aimed at: all creatives, most pictures are reasonable resolution

3. Morguefile

Morguefile is for creatives, by creatives. It started in 1996 and is highly recommended by many web design and development professionals. Morguefile currently contains 9,148 pages at 24 photos each page, and the photos are very good resolution. It’s called “morguefile” in reference to the term used for a place to keep postproduction creative materials.

The photos are mostly great quality, and you can filter your results by several characteristics, which is handy. Keyword tagging is relatively basic, with between five and fifteen tags per photo, so use a few terms to search. If you use a photo from Morguefile, you’re asked to credit the photographer when possible. The site can be a bit slow to load sometimes.

Aimed at: Illustrators, artists, designers, teachers and all other creative pursuits, according to the home page

4. Pixel Perfect Digital

The name is certainly not misplaced as the pictures on the site are quite polished, especially the illustrations. There are around 7,500 images on site currently.

The photos, although quite small in number, look good and have been post processed by professionals. Each photo has an accompanying short story, which can be quite handy, and certainly endearing! You can either browse categories or use the very basic search facility.

Aimed at: Both web design and print designers (photo resolution is usually excellent)

5. Free Media Goo

Free Media Goo has a memorable name for a not-so-memorable site; it certainly has some good features, but is more a niche search engine. The site was created by web developers for web developers, hence the presence of free Flash and audio as well as stock photos.

Alongside free stock photos, the site also has free textures, audio and Flash movies. Unfortunately, the collection is tiny and many photos are a bit amateurish.

Aimed at: Web designers and web developers, illustrators, print designers

6. openphoto.net

openphoto.net has been collecting free photos since 1998, with contributors from all over the world. Many people use it is a photoblog site, so you might find many Flickr-style personal shots.

Search is extremely simple (keyword only), but you do have the option to browse categories to find images (which is probably the easiest way). Keyword tagging is very basic on the site and in many cases, a photo has only one tag. Unless your search is quite literal, you are better off browsing the categories of openphoto.net. Almost all photos have a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

Aimed at: Web designers and developers – images are often too low resolution for many print jobs.

7. Flickr

Flickr is one of the largest online photo sharing sites on the web. There’s an enormous mix of complete amateur pictures and professional photographer images. The admin team at Flickr numbers almost 50, and the site was recently purchased by Yahoo! so a great group of folks manages it.

Use the Advanced Search and check the ‘Creative Commons licensed’ box to find pictures that can be used in your web design and development. The site has excellent tagging so it’s quite easy to find images under the subject that you’re interested.

Aimed at: web design and development professionals because most of the photos featured on the site have too low of a resolution for print design work

8. Stockvault

A reasonable sized collection of quite good photos is available at Stockvault. They have just over 16,000 stock photos from 4,000 photographers. All images are licensed under a Creative Commons attribution license. The site began as the personal site of Bjorgvin Gudmundsson in 2001.

Keyword tagging is quite basic, so explore the site with both the search option and the categories. The resolution is what most ordinary stock photo sites would call “small to medium”. You can download pictures, logo templates, clip art, textures and backgrounds without signing up on the site. Stockvault has a nicer and friendlier user interface than many stock photo sites.

Aimed at: mostly web designers

9. NASA

Yes, this image site is ‘the’ NASA. All photos are space themed, but the collection is large and the photos are very professional.

Keyword tagging is good and the resolution is invariably 640px x 480px, so they’re not ideal for print design. Many of the shots are better as textures/repeating background than actual pictures. The size of the collection is substantially increased by checking the external collections.

Aimed at: People interested in space exploration, but useful for web designers looking for textures or space themed shots

10. deviantART’s Stock Images section

deviantART is a popular website for digital and traditional media artists to showcase their work. They have a great stock photography section on site. deviantART is a big site, with a big team and big ideas. The site is full of personality, as the name suggests.

The images are gorgeous, image resolution is enormous, you can download without registering anywhere, oh, and did I mention that the images are gorgeous?

Aimed at: Artists, print designers, and web designers.

Free stock photo search engine

11. Everystockphoto

It was only a matter of time before someone found a way to aggregate free stock photo results and monetize the concept somehow, and that’s what Everystockphoto does. There are a huge number of pictures indexed on this site, numbering in the millions. For example, there’s over 67,000 results for the search term “clouds“.

You can search free stock photos from Morguefile, Freerange Stock, Photoxpress, Flickr, stock.xchn, NASA, Wikimedia Commons and more, in a single site. They have good sorting and filtering options to help you find the perfect photo, but not heaps of search options, though. You may be able to search all the different sites here, but you still have to sign up for accounts on the site that hosts the image.

Aimed at: Web designers and web developers, illustrators, print designers

12. Creative Commons Search

The Creative Commons Search finds images through Google and Yahoo, Flickr, Blip.tv, jamendo SpinExpress and Wikimedia Commons. Probably the largest collection of free images in one place but beware, some search results may not be Creative Commons so do your homework before using a photo.

You can search for a single term across quite a few different media quickly. You can refine your results by commercial use and modification allowances. You have access to each site’s own search features instantly, but have to log in to download the image in some cases.

Aimed at: Web designers and web developers, illustrators, print designers

Free areas in paid sites

13. Dreamstime’s Free Section

Dreamstime has one of the largest libraries of stock photos on the net. At the time of writing, they have just under 7 million images, and just under 80,000 contributing photographers. In order to stand out among the huge crowd, Dreamstime photographers often put their photos in the free section of the site. A search for house, for example, yields 26 pages of 20 results each. The site has been online since 2000.

Most free photos require no attribution to the photographer in your design. Photos at Dreamstime remain on the site indefinitely. Unfortunately, you can only search photos by keyword; there are no advanced search filters like orientation, color or model options, etc.

Aimed at: Web and print designers

14. Fotolia’s Free Section

Fotolia is one of the oldest stock photo sites on the net. Their free section is quite good, but changes every day and the free photos that were there yesterday, may not be there the next. Fotolia has an office in France and their global headquarters in New York.

They offer ten to twenty free photos every day. If you have the time to download and tag all of them every day, you could build quite a library of photos. You won’t find isolated shots, and photos are frequently just a tiny bit lower quality than you’d pay for.

Aimed at: Fotolia in general has photos, illustrations, vectors and videos for download for many digital media professions

15. iStockphoto’s Free Images

iStockphoto is one of the most popular stock photo sites on the net, with excellent quality photos that are often Photoshop’ed to within an inch of their lives already (which is either a good or bad thing). iStockphoto has a responsive helpdesk and a comprehensive FAQ.

They only offer one free image a week, but it is always high quality. Free images from the last three weeks are kept available for download. Similar to Fotolia, you’ll have to make it a habit to download and tag these photos yourself so you can search them on your own computer.



10 Alternatives To Mininova

After nearly five years of loyal service, Mininova disabled access to over a million torrent files when it partly shut down its website. Starting today, only approved publishers are able to upload files to the site, but luckily there are plenty of alternatives and potential replacements BitTorrent users can flock to.

With an impressive 175,820,430 visits and close to a billion page views in the last 30 days, Mininova set a record that they will be unable to break in the near future. Last August a Dutch court ruled that Mininova had to remove all links to ‘infringing’ torrent files, with disastrous consequences.

Since it is technically unfeasible to pre-approve or filter every potentially infringing torrent file, the Mininova team decided to throw in the towel and only allow torrents to be submitted by approved uploaders. This move resulted in the deletion of more than a million torrents, many of which were not infringing any copyrights at all.

Thankfully, there are still plenty of alternatives for those BitTorrent users who are looking for the latest Ubuntu, OpenSUSE or Fedora release.

Below we provide a random list of public torrent sites that are still open, but there are of course hundreds more sites we could have included. If your personal favorite is missing, feel free to post it in the comments below – preferably with your reasons why it should be included in any upcoming lists.

1. Vertor

2. Torrentzap

3. Torrentreactor

4. ExtraTorrent

5. KickassTorrents

6. BTjunkie

7. isoHunt

8. yourBitTorrent

9. The Pirate Bay

10. ShareReactor

IKEA’s Facebook campaign: FAIL

The Swedish town of Malmo is a wonderful place.

Some feel it is wonderful because it is the spiritual home of a band that was once cool, the Cardigans.

But now all committed social networkers will think Malmo is wonderful because of its IKEA. You see, the Swedish purveyor of fast-food furniture decided to open a new store in Malmo and didn’t really have a lot of money to let people know about it.

So it engaged a rather outre advertising agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a rather special launch campaign.

The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, it uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.

Then it put out word that the first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it.

Facebook being what it is, word got out and needy, enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new sofa, a new bed, or a new vase into which they could stick their plastic flowers or their dead grandparents’ ashes.

Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world’s most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.

Please look at the video I have embedded, as this idea is, as the best always are, simple and inspired. Which, some would say, also perfectly describes the clever, affordable, if sometimes maddening-to-put-together little things made by IKEA.

Office 2010 Beta……Here we go again

Get it now

Download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

Download Office Home and Business 2010 Beta

This post is from my personal hero Paul Thurrott’s site SuperSite for Windows, if you ever need the scoop on any MicroSoft product just have a look at his site. Paul Thurrott is also the author of Windows 7 secrets a must for anyone with the new OS.

Windows 7 Secrets: Do What You Never Thought Possible With Microsoft Windows 7

Office 2010 Starter is pretty straightforward. It offers ad-supported, limited (but not trial) versions of just Word and Excel and will be sold with new PCs only. And while that may sound slightly disappointing, remember that this product replaces Microsoft Works, providing a true Office experience. More important, perhaps, it also provides easy ways to upgrade to more compelling Office product editions.

“Office Starter is a great solution,” Hutchinson said. “Most people want a productivity experience out of the box with a new PC, and this delivers on that. It lets you create and edit basic documents. It contains the ribbon, so it’s a great onramp to the full Office experience. And it’s designed for people using Works–and there are tens of millions of people doing so today–people with basic needs.”

Comparing the Starter versions of Word and Excel to the normal versions, you’ll see a couple of obvious differences. Microsoft says that Office Starter retains the Office 2010 look and feel, but that’s not the case, at least not in the Beta, which offers the pale blue look of Office 2007. The ribbon is there, but simplified. In Word 2010, for example, you get 7 ribbon tabs by default, but Word 2010 Starter offers just 4 (Reference, View, and Review are missing). There’s a fixed task pane on the right, and you can’t move it or remove it. This task pane includes some links–Get Started, Do More, and Get More–as well as a square, web-like ad in the lower right.

The ribbon UI from Word 2010 Starter (top) and Word 2010 (bottom) compared.

Also unique to the Office Starter apps is a Purchase link in the upper right of the ribbon. From there you will be able to eventually upgrade to better Office versions electronically.

“These are basic productivity solutions,” Hutchinson said, noting that the types of things you can’t do–like creating a table of contents, multi-author reviewing, Smart Art, bibliography, and the like in Word Starter–are typically needed only by more sophisticated users in work situations. And sure enough, even for my own (non-book) needs, Word Starter fits the bill. I’ve been using it exclusively for a few weeks now, actually.

As for Click-2-Run, this Office installation solution is based on Microsoft’s enterprise-oriented Application Virtualization (App-V) technology. “20 million people visit office.com every year and download trial versions of our software,” Hutchinson said. “And it takes 20 to 50 minutes to download a trial Office version on a typical broadband connection. That’s too long.”

Click-2-Run makes this experience faster and better. It presents a streaming virtualized copy of Office to the PC, allowing users to get up and running more quickly than before. Best of all, because the applications are virtualized, they’re continuously up-to-date, automatically, and can be run side-by-side with older Office versions. “People are scared to install new Office versions because they’re not sure what to do with their old version,” Hutchinson said. “With Click-2-Run, Office 2010 only takes about two to three minutes for the initial download, and then you can start running the first application.” In the background, the rest of the suite downloads and installs as you do other things.

Click-2-Run will be used for purchases, too: Microsoft will also make purchasable versions of various Office 2010 product editions available from the Microsoft Store online.

One final aspect of Click-2-Run is its ability to create a so-called Office To-Go Device, which is usually a USB memory key. Basically, instead of installing Office on your hard drive, you can install it to a USB device and run it from there. This will work from any compatible PC (Vista or higher), thanks to the self-contained nature of the virtualized environment is uses. When you run the Office executable on the device–a single file–you’re presented with a front-end dashboard showing each of the available applications. It’s unclear at this time how Microsoft will handle authorization. Perhaps it will just be relegated to Starter, which is essentially free anyway.

Let me just add I can take no credit for this work as it was posted on Pauls site November 24, 2009: Original Artical

How To Run Google Chrome OS From A USB Drive

Just a few days ago, Google announced the release of the Chrome OS source code. Within less than 24 hours, the web was littered with disk images for running the new OS on virtual machines such as VMWare and VirtualBox. I even managed to put together my own Google Chrome OS download in the form of a complete VirtualBox appliance. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve taken it a step further, and now you can easily try it on your own computer from a USB thumb drive.

Before You Get Started

Before you decide to download Chrome OS, there are probably a few things I should tell you about it. It is in the very early stages of development, so there is still a lot of stuff that doesn’t work. In fact, it may not work for you at all.

You should also be made aware that this operating system is very simplistic by design, as it is intended for use on netbook computers. By definition, a netbook is a small and inexpensive laptop intended for very casual use such as web browsing and simple office tasks. When you launch Chrome OS, pretty much all you get is a web browser. Don’t be surprised if you go through all this and say to yourself, “I did all that work just to log into a freakin’ browser?”

Requirements

First of all, you will of course need a USB drive you can use to try it out. The disk image is 2,988,442,112 bytes, so you’ll probably need a 4GB thumb drive to be able to use it. If you have any files on your USB drive that you need, be sure to back them up to a safe place because this will wipe all the data from your USB drive. Consider yourself warned.

You will also need a computer that allows booting from a USB drive. You’ll need to instruct your computer’s BIOS to boot from the USB drive instead of the hard drive like it normally does. When you boot up your computer, it should provide you with information as to how to bring up a boot menu. On some machines it is the F8 key and others the F12 key or some other key.

If it all scrolls by too fast, some computers will allow you to pause the boot sequence by pressing the Pause key. That should give you all the time you need to read all that stuff on the screen to see if you can find out what the boot menu key is (if there is one). If you don’t see anything about a boot menu, you could also try editing your BIOS settings to boot from the USB drive. You may wish to consult your computer (or motherboard) manual on how to do this.

You will also need a little bit of luck. Chromium OS may or may not work on your computer hardware. I did successfully run it on two home-built frankenstein computers (with ASUS motherboards), but it did not successfully recognize the network adapter on my Dell laptop. All of this work may be for nothing, if it ends up that Chromium OS does not like your network adapter. Ah yes, I forgot to mention that you do also need a computer with a network adapter.

Finally, you’ll need to download the necessary files to put Chromium OS (that’s what the open source version of Google Chrome OS is called) onto your USB drive. I’ve packaged it all together in a torrent for you:

Download the Chromium OS for USB Torrent (Right-click and Save As)

You’ll need a good BitTorrent client like µTorrent to download it. If you’re new to BitTorrent, be sure to check out our Big Book of BitTorrent. You’ll learn more than you’ll ever want to know about it.

The torrent has a zip file that includes the disk image, as well as a Windows tool for putting the image onto a USB drive. The program you’ll use to create the Chrome OS USB boot disk is called Image Writer for Windows. It’s a nifty little tool for writing disk images, it’s free, and it’s open source.

You don’t need to download it seperately because I’ve already included it in the torrent. I just wanted to mention the good folks that developed the great application and send them some link love as well.

Installing Chromium OS to your USB Drive

Unzip chrome_os_usb.zip, and launch Win32DiskImager.exe. If you need a program to unzip the archive, you can download IZArc. If you get the warning below when you launch Image Writer, don’t sweat it. It’s looking for a floppy disk that’s not there.

Once you’ve got Image Writer running, click the folder icon and select the chrome_os.img file (it should be located in the same place where you extracted the zip file and launched Win32DiskImager.exe).

Connect your USB drive to your PC. If you have autorun enabled, you may want to wait a few seconds for your computer to do its thing. Just close whatever window may pop up. Next, click on the Device dropdown and select the drive letter that corresponds to your USB drive. Then, click Write and the program will commence writing the disk image to your USB drive.

Boot Up Chromium OS

You’re now ready to boot up Chromium OS! You can just leave the USB drive in your machine and reboot it. When the machine boots, press the boot menu key on your keyboard. Select your USB drive from the menu. In about 10 seconds or so, you should see the Chromium OS login screen.

Login with chronos and password. This will log you in as a local user. Once you log in, you should see what looks almost just like the Google Chrome browser. If you click on the Chrome sphere in the upper left corner, you should see a Google Accounts login page telling you to log into Welcome. Log in with your Google Account.

If you do not see this page and you get a browser page that says it could not find the page requested, then unfortunately luck is not on your side. It means that Chromium OS doesn’t like your network adapter. You could still however try it out in a virtual machine if you so desire. If you were able to succesfully log in, you should then see the application page.

As you can see, it is all in the cloud. All the applications you see on the app page bring up different webpages, and everything you do takes place within the browser. In my experience, although it did boot up relatively fast, the browser tends to run a bit slow and is a bit jumpy. Although the calculator and notepad launch properly in little popover windows, the apps don’t work and nothing loads into the windows at all.

The To-do List application doesn’t work either, and you get a Google.com account login page. Note, this is not the same as a Google Accounts login so you won’t be able to log in with your Google Account. The Google.com login page is only for Google employees. The Contacts application brings up a Google Talk gadget that doesn’t appear to work.

As I said earlier, a lot of the stuff isn’t working right. You’ll also see right at the top of the application page a message that says UI under development. Designs are subject to change.

All the other applications are simply links to webpages. One thing that I found rather amusing is that when you click on the Hotmail icon, it takes you to Gmail. However, the Yahoo! Mail icon does indeed bring you to the Yahoo! Mail login page. I suppose Google likes Yahoo! better than they do Microsoft.

So what do you think of Chrome OS? Do you think it is the netbook operating system of the future?

How to Connect Two Computers Without a Router

Let’s assume you have two computers at home and you want to connect them together so that you can easily share an internet connection between the two machines or transfer photos, music and other files from one computer to another. How do you do this?

Connect Two Computers Directly

There are two options – you can either buy a router or, if you are looking for something more simple and don’t want to spend money on new networking hardware, you can connect the two computers using a commonly-available cable. The latter method doesn’t involve any complicated network settings and you will still be able to share files, internet connection, and even printers between computers.

Things you need:

To set up this basic wired home network, all you need is an inexpensive Ethernet crossover cable and the other requirement is that network cards* (also known as LAN or Ethernet cards) should be installed on each of you computers.

[*] This should not be an issue because network cards are available on most newer machines by default but if you are working with a very old computer, you can either attach an internal LAN card to your computer’s motherboard or go for a USB Network adapter that will turn a USB port into an Ethernet (RJ45) port.

Also see: How to Identify Computer Cables and Connectors

An Ethernet crossover cable looks like a standard Ethernet cable but the internal wiring is a little different. You can purchase crossover cables at Amazon.com or from your local computer store. If you have trouble finding them, you can purchase an inexpensive crossover adaptor and that will let you use any standard Ethernet cable as a crossover cable.

Connect Computers with an Ethernet Crossover Cable

Before connecting the two computers with a physical cable, make sure that both machine are using the same workgroup*. Here is step-by-step guide that explains how you can change the workgroup of your computers.

Changing workgroup in Windows XP – From the Start menu, right-click “My Computer.” Select Properties in the drop-down menu, and then select the second tab that says “Computer Name” from the System Properties window. Now click the “Change…” button, enter a unique Workgroup name and reboot your computer.

Changing workgroup in Windows 7 or Vista – Open the Control Panel, type “Workgroup” in the search box, and select the entry that says “Change Workgroup Name.” Click the “Change…” button, enter a Workgroup name and restart the computer. Windows 7 users can skip one step; simply type “Workgroup” in the search box in the start menu, and select the first entry, then proceed as above.

Now that the workgroups are same for both computers, connect the two computers together using the Ethernet crossover cable. Simply plug-in one end of the crossover cable into the network adapter of Computer A and connect the other end of the cable to the network adapter of Computer B.

Windows will automatically recognize the new network, and you can now easily view files and folder that the other computer has shared. Simply open Networks from the Start Menu (or the Control Panel), and you should see the other computer by its name. You can then browse any shared files on the other computer, and can even utilize shared printers.

Troubleshooting – If you do not see the other computer under Networks, you probably have a prompt at the top of your Network window saying that Network discovery is turned off (screenshots below). Select “Turn on Network Discovery and File Sharing.”  In the next prompt, select “No, make the network I am connected to a private network.”  Now you should see the other computer on the home network.

[*] While it is possible to share files between two computers connected with a crossover cable without making them part of the same workgroup, the method will only work if both computers have this network set as a private network, and may still cause problems. It is therefore advisable to have both computers on the same workgroup before sharing files and printers.

Share an Internet Connection Between Two Computers

There are scenarios where you may want to share the same internet connection between two computers. For instance:

Situation A - You have setup a Wi-Fi network at home but your old desktop computer doesn’t have a wireless network card. In that case, you can use the laptop to connect to the internet wirelessly and then share that same connection with the desktop over a crossover Ethernet cable.

Situation B – You have a netbook with a built-in cellular data connection. You can share that connection with any another computer at home through the crossover Ethernet cable.

Situation C – You use a (slow) Wireless USB modem with your laptop computer while your desktop is connected to an ADSL Broadband line and there’s no router at home. For any bandwidth intensive tasks, like when you want to backup photos from your laptop to an online service, you can connect the laptop to the desktop and things will happen much faster.

OK, let’s look at the steps required for sharing an Internet connection.

First, if you only wish to share internet connection and not files, both computers need not belong to the same workgroup. All you need to do is to connect the two computers with the Ethernet crossover cable, and then turn on Internet connection sharing in the computer that already has an Internet connection. The instructions vary for different versions of Windows:

For Windows XP – Select “Network and Internet Connections” from the Control Panel and click “Network Connections.”

Right-click on the network connection you wish to share (the one connected to the internet), select Properties, click on the “Advanced” tab, and then check the box that says “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.”  Click OK, and the second computer that you have connected to this computer with the Crossover Cable should have internet access now.

For Windows 7 and Vista – Open Control Panel, enter “network connections” in the search box on the top right and select “View Network Connections.”

Right-click on the network connection you wish to share (this must be the one connected to the internet) and select Properties. Select the “Sharing” tab and then check the option that says “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.” Click OK, and the other computer you have connected to this Windows 7 or Vista computer should have internet access now.

 

See original post from http://www.labnol.org

100 Free Audio Books You Should Have Read By Now

With so much school work to do, it may seem impossible to get any extra reading in, but luckily, there are free audio books available to help you out. Whether you need to catch up on reading that you skipped over in high school or would enjoy expanding your horizons with books you haven’t read but feel you should have, download these books and listen any time.

Literature from the UK

British, Scottish, and Irish writers of some very impressive literature are included among these books you should have read.

1. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Listen to these tales, which were originally created to be heard, not read.
2. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Probably the most famous love story, if you haven’t read this yet, then be sure to listen to it now.
3. The Tempest by William Shakespeare. One of Shakespeare’s most magical plays, The Tempest is best heard aloud.
4. Emma by Jane Austen. Listen to Austen’s popular comedy of manners here.
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Another popular Austen novel, this one revolves around five sisters in English society.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Discover the secrets and passion in this popular, yet unusual tale of romance.
7. Howards End by EM Forster. This book about class and society in turn-of-the-century England is not to be missed.
8. Silas Marner by George Eliot. Be sure to listen to Eliot’s classic about love, friendship, and community.
9. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. This story was first written to highlight some of the horrors taking place in society during the 1800s and has become a popular classic.
10. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Perhaps one of the most popular Christmas stories, this is worth a listen.
11. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Listen to this story, which was the basis of the movie Apocalypse Now.
12. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. This story will take you on a fun ride as two young men attempt to woo their ladies through a bit of deception that brings much confusion and hilarity.
13. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Get stranded on a tropical island with this story–considered to be the first novel written in English.
14. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. Perhaps more famous for his Brave New World, Huxley’s Chrome Yellow showcases the wit and social satire that make up most of his early work.
15. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Hear the story of this famous archer and his exploits.
16. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Satire and adventure abound in this classic story.
17. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Listen to this famous Christian allegory that has not fallen out of favor since it was published in 1678.
18. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. This semi-autobiographical novel tells of a young man coming of age and becoming an artist.
19. Night and Day by Virginia Woolf. Perhaps one of her lesser-known novels, Night and Day explores themes typical in Woolf’s writing, including marriage, love, and woman’s role in relationships and society.

American Literature

Listen to the works of Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, and F Scott Fitzgerald, among other esteemed American writers with these free audio books.

1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin. A short novel, this story tells of a woman who feels constrained and unfulfilled until she reaches out for something different.
2. The Call of the Wild by Jack London. Go north with London’s story of Buck, who becomes a sled dog in Alaska and eventually heeds the call of the wild.
3. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. Follow this family from Sweden that creates a place on the American frontier.
4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Despite being a novel written by a middle aged white woman, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been credited for changing the views of slavery in the north.
5. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. This story details the confusion, cowardice, and ultimately, peace of mind of a soldier in the American Civil War.
6. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Frequently taught in high school, if you missed this book, then listen to it here.
7. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. If this whale of a book seemed too large to tackle, listen to this audio version instead.
8. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Make sure your understanding of this story comes from the source and not TV shows or cartoons that have distorted the tale.
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Not only is this book acclaimed for its accurate portrayal of upper-class society in New York of the early 20th century, it also earned Wharton the first Pulitzer Prize given to a woman.
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F Scott Fitzgerald. This story, taken from Fitzgerald’s book, Tales of the Jazz Age, tells the story of a man who ages backwards and encapsulates the blithe lifestyle of the period.

European Literature

From Kafka’s Metamorphosis to Hesse’s Siddhartha, be sure to listen to these incredible European works.

1. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. This short novel details the unusual change a man unexpectedly goes through upon waking one morning. Discussed widely for its deeper meaning, this story is sure to provide you with a few ideas of your own.
2. Candide by Voltaire. Don’t miss this biting commentary on society that is known for it’s satirical wit.
3. Anton Chekhov: Collected Stories. Listen to these stories written by famed Russian dramatist, Anton Chekhov.
4. Don Quixote, Volume 1 by Miguel de Cervantes. This story of imagination will keep you listening as you await the next adventure.
5. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Siddhartha sets out on a journey to find the Buddha, and discovers himself in the process.
6. The Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy. Experience the master’s revelation as he and the peasant struggle through a blizzard.
7. Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Listen to this story, the ravings of a bitter, isolated madman.

Classic Mysteries and Thrillers

Find well-known thrillers such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well as some less well-known but still popular mysteries such as The Red House Mystery written by AA Milne.

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Listen to this classic tale of Frankenstein’s creation of a monster and what happens when he fails to take responsibility for what he has made.
2. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. This famous tale of a man with two personalities is as likely to send chills down your spine as it did for readers in the 1800’s.
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Follow along as Sherlock Holmes solves this famous mystery.
4. Dracula by Bram Stoker. You really can’t miss listening to the original tale of Count Dracula.
5. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Give this ghost story a listen to see what becomes of a governess and her two charges.
6. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. Don’t lose your head over this story, just be sure to listen to it if you haven’t already read the book.
7. The Monkey’s Paw by WW Jacobs. You may never want to have three wishes again after listening to this story.
8. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe. Locked safely away from the plague, the prince and his court hold a masquerade, to which a mysterious stranger attends.
9. War of the Worlds by HG Wells. Listen to Wells’ famous tale of martians taking over Earth and imagine hearing its adaptation broadcast over the radio as it once was, possibly setting off widespread panic.
10. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Follow the daring exploits of the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel in this adventure story that has stood the test of time.
11. The Red House Mystery by AA Milne. Famous for being the creator of Winnie the Pooh, this novel is the only mystery written by Milne and still enjoys publication today.

Biographies and Autobiographies

Listen to these outstanding books about famous people such as Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, and Leonardo Da Vinci.

1. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller. Find out how Helen Keller overcame her obstacles to become a famous author, lecturer, and political activist.
2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Listen to Thoreau’s experience as he lived on Walden Pond in an experiment to better understand society by isolating himself from it.
3. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, Douglass escaped to the north, where he began a life lecturing against slavery.
4. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. Written in four parts and left unfinished, this book is considered one of the most influential autobiographies written.
5. The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketchum. This biography is written by the cartoonist famous for creating Dennis the Menace, and while he takes on the subject with all seriousness, the story is a delight to hear.
6. Personal Memoirs of US Grant by Ulysses S Grant. Learn about Grant’s life and the American Civil War with his memoirs, finished just weeks prior to his death.
7. The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt by Hermann Hagedorn. Written with the blessing of the Roosevelt family, this book tells the fascinating story of Theodore Roosevelt.
8. The Life of PT Barnum by Joel Benton. Learn about the life of this innovative entrepreneur and founder of one of the most famous circuses ever.
9. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci by Leonardo Da Vinci. Hear this book about one of the great masters.

Children’s Literature

You really should have read these books by now, but if you haven’t, then by all means, take the time to listen to these classics.

1. Wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum. Download this free podcast from iTunes to listen to this timeless story.
2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Follow Alice and her adventures with this free audio recording.
3. Peter Pan by JM Barrie. You may have seen any number of movie versions of this story, but listen to the book too.
4. Five Children and It by E Nesbit. Listen to this magical tale of the children and their discovery of a sand-fairy.
5. Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. Listen to 18 fairy tales, some popular and some not so well known, written by Andersen.
6. Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. Get even more fairy tales with these from the brothers Grimm.
7. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The four sisters in this story will warm your heart and stay with you forever.
8. The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. Don’t rely on Walt Disney’s version of this story when you can listen to the original.
9. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The ultimate in adventure stories, this is great tale for young and the young-at-heart.
10. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Don’t miss this classic story of boyhood and the adventures of a bygone era.
11. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Learn the origin of many animals and events from the fantastical tales here.
12. Black Beauty – The Autobiography of a Horse by Anna Sewell. Not originally intended just for children, this book tells of compassion and kindness.
13. The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik. Without the use of his legs, this prince relies on his magic cloak for adventures.
14. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Listen to this popular tale of human-like animals living in the English countryside.
15. The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. This nonsensical poem tells the story of four animals, two of which marry after setting off to sea.
16. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery. Follow the adventures of this spunky girl and her life at Green Gables.
17. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. This famous bunny gets himself into trouble, but his mom is always there for him.
18. Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Heidi finds herself living in the alps with her grandparents and steals the hearts of all she meets.
19. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney. This story tells of the Pepper family and how they always make the best of their difficult life circumstances.
20. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco. This tale of love and loss as told through a child’s stuffed rabbit is one that is certainly not to be missed.

Poetry

These works of poetry are definitely not to be missed and include such powerhouses as The Raven, The Waste Land, and Leaves of Grass.

1. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem just begs to be read aloud, so be sure to listen to Poe’s famous tale of nevermore.
2. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake. Allen Ginsberg performs these poems with musical accompaniment.
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Explore the medieval view of the afterlife as explained by Dante in his famous poem in three parts.
4. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge. Listen to this poem about loneliness, repentance, and hardship asea.
5. Death Be Not Proud by John Donne. Donne overcomes fear by reducing death to a natural consequence with no power in this famous poem.
6. The Waste Land by TS Eliot. Full of literary allusions, this influential poem is worth hearing, whether you’ve read the poem several times or never at all.
7. The Odyssey by Homer. Listen to this Greek epic poem that details Odysseus’ eventful journey to return home.
8. Sonnets by William Shakespeare. All 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets are included in this audio recording.
9. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Lose yourself in the sensual poetry of Whitman with this audio recording.
10. Beowulf by Anonymous. This ancient poem tells of battles and dragons and is one of the cornerstone pieces of literature.
11. Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson. Listen to the poems penned by this famous spinster.
12. Selected Poems by Robert Frost. These poems by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet will remind you why Frost remains a favorite.

Non-Fiction

From American history to the essays of Francis Bacon and everywhere in between, these non-fiction books are some you need to hear.

1. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Discover Nietzsche’s beliefs in this philosopher’s popular book.
2. The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. This collection of essays highlights both the repression of racism and the strength of the African American people as they rise to overcome.
3. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. From Woolf’s famous talk on women and writing, listen as you learn what Woolf says women need in order to be successful writers.
4. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. This political treatise offers advice on how a prince can avoid overthrow.
5. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Whether or not you buy into Marx’s theory, this is one you should have read by now.
6. The Essays of Francis Bacon. These famous essays written in the early 1600’s by Francis Bacon cover philosophy, science, history, and law.
7. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein. If you’ve ever wondered about the theory of relativity, then give this book a listen.
8. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol I by Edward Gibbon. Learn about the end of the magnificent Roman Empire here.
9. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Visiting from France, de Tocqueville describes what he sees as the reason democracy was succeeding in America despite its failure in other countries.
10. Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry. Listen to this famous speech that convinced many of America’s founding fathers to send troops to fight in the American Revolution.
11. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. If you somehow made it through middle school without having read this famous address, then you should take this chance to listen to it here.
12. History of the United States by Charles Austin Beard. This famous recounting of American history takes the somewhat unusual perspective of the founding fathers being motivated more by money that philosophical beliefs.

Windows 7 tool violates GPL; Microsoft will open source it

 

After pulling the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from its servers over reports that it might violate the GNU General Public License (GPL), Microsoft has decided to go open source with the tool.

Microsoft has confirmed that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the online Microsoft Store indeed violates the GNU General Public License (GPL). The problem isn’t just that Microsoft used open source code in the tool, but that the software giant also released the tool under a closed source license. As such, Redmond has decided it is best to rerelease the tool under the GPL sometime this week, according to a post on Port 25, the company’s open source community blog:

After looking at the code in question, we are now able to confirm this was indeed the case, although it was not intentional on our part. While we had contracted with a third party to create the tool, we share responsibility as we did not catch it as part of our code review process. We have furthermore conducted a review of other code provided through the Microsoft Store and this was the only incident of this sort we could find.

When it comes to our attention that a Microsoft component contains third party code, our aim is to be respectful of the terms under which that code is being shared. As a result, we will be making the source code as well as binaries for this tool available next week under the terms of the General Public License v2 as described here, and are also taking measures to apply what we have learned from this experience for future code reviews