Windows 7’s Aero Shake feature allows you to minimize every window except the one in which you’re currently working in a single step. 

Here’s how to “shake your desktop:”

1.  Click and hold the title bar of the window you want to keep on the desktop.

The title bar is the area at the top of the window which states what program or file you are in:

2.  While still holding the title bar, shake it quickly back and forth until all of the other windows minimize to the taskbar.

3.  Let your mouse go.  If you want all the windows to return, shake the title bar again.

Check out the Windows 7 Shake in action!

Here’s how:

1.  From within your Gmail account, click on the Gears icon up on the top right of the page.  Click on Mail Settings.

2.  Next, choose Accounts and Import from the top menu.

3.  Click on Send mail from another address.

4.  Enter in the name that you want to use for the account and the email address.  Then click Next Step.

5.  Leave the default to send through Gmail rather than using an SMTP service.  Click Next Step.

6.  Next, an email will be sent to your separate email account to verify it is owned by you.  Log into your separate email account and find the confirmation email. 

Copy and paste the code into the field next to Verify.  Click Verify.

7.  You’re done!  Now all the email from that address will come into your mailbox.

One of the best ways to keep your computer system running efficiently is to clear temporary files and delete Internet browsing cache.  In the past, this was a manual process.  With Windows CleanUp!, you can do this in a flash!

My geeky friends and I have been using this program for years.  A lot of programs on the Internet promise to help your system and never deliver.  CleanUp! actually does what it says it will do.

Here’s How To Get It

1.  Go to Steven Gould’s Windows Cleanup! download page by clicking here.

2.  Click on CleanUp452.exe to download the install file.

3.  Choose Save File.

After it has downloaded, double-click on the file you saved.  Alternately, your browser will let you run the file immediately after its finished downloading.

4.  The setup will guide you through the installation.  Click Next until it is finished installing, then click Finish.  The installation is super quick and easy.  It will ask if you want to run it after it is installed – keep that box checked so CleanUp! opens.

5.  Next, click on CleanUp!.  CleanUp! recommends you run in demo mode for the first time.  You can try this if you want to see how it effects your system.  If you don’t change any of the settings, I wouldn’t worry about using it in demo mode. 

If you still have your browser open, the following box may appear:

6.  Click Ok.  Get ready to hear the fabulous flushing noise as it removes all the clutter on your hard drive!

7.  When finished, it gives you a small summary of how much space CleanUp! saved you. 

Windows CleanUp! should be ran once a week to help improve your computer performance.  It is a must have application on every Windows system.

To rip our DVD we’ll use HD Decrypter which is the always free module of the DVDFab software suite. HD Decrypter will remove the copy protection from your DVD, and copy the contents of the DVD to your hard drive.

Note: You’ll get full access to all the options in DVDFab  during the 30 trial period. HD Decrypter is always free.

Download and install DVDFab. You’ll find the download link below.

If prompted with a Windows Security dialog box, select Install.

When you run DVDFab for the first time, you’ll be met with a Welcome to DVDFab screen. You can select the Do not show again to skip this screen in the future and then click Start DVDFab.

Place your DVD into your optical drive. The application will take a few seconds to open the DVD source.

Before we get started with the ripping, we’re going to change a few settings. Select the green button at the top with the white check mark.

On the Common Settings window, select DVD to DVD on the left pane. For the Default output type, we’ll select DVD Folder. The default setting of DVD Writer is used for copying and burning a DVD and won’t work after the 30 day trial is over.

Tip: If you’re going to play your ripped DVD in the Windows Media Center native Movie Library, select Create dvdid.xml which can be used by Windows Media Center. This will allow WMC to pull cover art and metadata for your movie.

You can set your output directory by selecting General on the left pane of the Common Settings…

And then browsing for your preferred output directory. On Windows 7 the default output will be C:Users%username%DocumentsDVDFab

If you’ve made the changes you’ll be prompted to restart the program. Click OK then open and close the application.

On the the main interface, make sure to select Full Disc on the left and Copy DVD-Video (VIDEO_TS folder), which should be selected by default.

Under navigation select Remove annoying PGCs to eliminate unwanted program chains like FBI warnings. You can also change the Volume Label by typing a name into text box. We recommend naming the Volume label the same as the movie title, but it’s not essential.

Note: For the Quality setting, once the 30 day trial has expired your only available option will be DVD9. During the 30 day trial you can select DVD5, which will (if needed) compress the output to a size that would fit a single layer DVD.

Click Start.

As the DVD is being ripped to your hard drive, you can follow the progress. Typical ripping time may be around 15 – 20 minutes, but will vary depending on your hardware and size of the disc.

When the process its finished you’ll be notified by the DVDFab dialog box. Click OK.

That’s it. Your rip is complete. Click Finish.

When your finished you’ll have a root folder containing a VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders. The AUDIO_TS folder, however,  is really not needed and will probably just be an empty folder.

Now we’ll take a look at playing the DVD rip in a number of Windows applications.

Playback in VLC

VLC is a popular cross platform media player that can play virtually any media type and VIDEO_TS is no exception. Open VLC and select Media  > Open Folder.

Select the folder that contains your VIDEO_TS directory and click OK.

Your DVD will open just as if you were playing it from the disc.

Playback in Boxee

Add the folder containing your DVD rip(s) to the My Movies library. For Boxee to recognize it and display covert art and movie info, make sure your root folder is named the same as the title of the movie or TV show you ripped. Check out our previous article for an in depth look at setting up movie folders and managing your movie collection in Boxee.

Select your DVD from the My Movies section, then select Local File…

…and enjoy your DVD rip.

Playback on Windows 7 Media Center

Add the root folder containing the VIDEO_TS folder and XML file (if you choose to create one when your ripped the DVD) to your WMC library. Your DVD rip will still play without the xml file, but you won’t have all the nice metadata.

Click play and video playback will begin just like the DVD.

Playback on Windows Media Player 12

It’s a tad trickier on WMP 12. Instead of opening a folder, which Media Player doesn’t support, we’ll open the VIDEO_TS.IFO file.

Media Player will begin playing.

Conclusion

Not only is ripping your DVD collection to a hard drive a nice way to enjoy them on your computer or media center PC, it is also a great way to create backups of your media. It’ll take up much more hard drive space than compressing them to MP4 or AVI files, but in return you’ll get the full DVD experience right from the hard drive without swapping discs.

You might want to check out our previous posts if you prefer to rip and convert DVDs to ISO images, or rip your DVD and compress it with x.264 codec.

Downloads

Download DVDFab / HD Decrypter

Download VLC

Download Boxee

Setting up global key bindings

The GNOME desktop environment by default uses the Ctrl+Alt+Del shortcut to bring up the shutdown, logout, restart, and hibernate dialog. This is not useful for users who are used to quick access to a task manager.

To change the settings of Ctrl+Alt+Del in GNOME open the keyboard shortcuts preferences. In Ubuntu it is located under System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts, and in Linux Mint open the mintMenu -> Control Center -> Keyboard Shortcuts.

The keyboard shortcuts preferences will show all of the shortcuts that the GNOME desktop environment can control.

Note: Other program specific or Compiz keyboard shortcuts will not show up here. You will need to look in those programs for what shortcuts are available.

Adding custom global keyboard shortcuts is as easy as clicking Add.

For a Ctrl+Alt+Del replacement we will name the new shortcut “Task Manager” and the command to run is gnome-system-monitor.

Click Apply and notice the new keyboard shortcut shows up under Custom Shortcuts but is disabled.

Click where it says “Disabled” and then press the new desired keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Delete. If the keyboard shortcut already exists as another GNOME keyboard shortcut you will be prompted to reassign the keyboard shortcut.

Click Reassign and the new keyboard shortcut will now be enabled and will show the keyboard sequence for the command.

For an even easier way to kill programs that are not responding, set up one more keyboard shortcut and name it “Kill Window” with the command xkill.

Click on “Disabled” just as before to set the keyboard shortcut for Kill Window to Ctrl+Delete.

Using System Monitor

To test out the new keyboard shortcuts push Ctrl+Alt+Del. The System Monitor will open and will have a lot of useful information on the System tab. This tab gives you easy access to your Linux distribution and release, current running kernel, GNOME version, and available disk space.

The next tab is the Processes tab and is similar to the task manager in Windows. You can sort by CPU usage, memory usage, process name, etc.

To kill a process, find the name and click the End Process button. A confirmation will pop-up and you can easily kill the non-responsive process.

The Resources tab shows CPU, memory, and network history and is very helpful in troubleshooting system performance. The history is only stored as long as the system monitor is open so make sure you leave it running if you want to view performance while running certain programs.

The last tab, File Systems, shows information about local hard disks and partitions. Particularly useful is the device, directory, and used information. The device shows how the system identifies your partition, and directory shows where that partition is mounted or if it is mounted at all.

Using xkill

The last keyboard shortcut that was set up was for a program called xkill. This program doesn’t have a user interface or settings. When you push the keyboard shortcut to run xkill the only thing you will notice is your mouse cursor will change into an X.

To kill a process with xkill move the mouse over the window that needs to be killed and left click with the mouse anywhere in the window. The program should instantly disappear along with any sub-windows the process had opened.

If either of these methods are used to kill a process just remember that any unsaved work will be lost because neither of these programs allow the program to save work before closing.

Windows Live Essentials is a bundle of nice free apps for Windows. Most of these programs, such as Mail and Movie Maker, were included as features in previous versions of Windows. Now these apps have been unbundled from Windows, ideally so they can be updated more frequently than Windows itself is. The latest version isn’t fully ready for prime-time yet, but if you’d like to get started with them, you can download the new Beta today and try out the new tools for yourself.

Note: The new Windows Live Essentials Beta only run on Vista and Windows 7.  If you’re using XP, you can still use the older edition of Live Essentials.

Installation and Setup

Download and install the new Live Essentials Beta (link below). Choose your language and click the Download now button.

If you’re using Live Mesh beta, you’ll get the following screen advising that Live Mesh will be uninstalled and Live Sync is taking its place.

If you had Mesh installed previously, you’ll notice a prompt as it uninstalls during the setup.

Now select the apps you want installed…just like with previous versions you don’t need to install everything, only the programs you want. You’ll see there are some new ones, and some existing programs will be updated. If you’re not a fan of extra Toolbars you’ll probably want to unselect Bing Bar.

For testing sake, we went ahead and installed everything. On our Windows 7 Core2 Duo machine with 4GB of RAM, the process took between 10-15 minutes…your mileage will vary depending on Internet speed and the number of apps installed.

Depending on what you choose to install, a reboot may be required.

After you’ve rebooted your computer, you’ll find the new Live Beta applications in the Start Menu under Windows Live.

Bing Bar

Here we’ll show you what to expect after installing your Windows Live Applications starting with what may be the least popular Bing Bar…

And here in Firefox…

We were expecting it would only install itself in IE but it’s added Firefox as well. There are no options during the install process to stop it from installing in Firefox, but you can remove it through the Add-ons section.

Windows Live Mail Beta

The New Live Mail Beta is actually a fairly decent program for managing your emails, includes more new features, and has the familiar Ribbon interface which was introduced in Office 2007. It allows you to manage multiple email accounts such as Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo (provided you subscribe to Mail Plus).

Windows Live Messenger Beta

One of the interesting features in the new Live Messenger Beta is the ability to work with your social accounts like Myspace and Facebook. You don’t have to connect social services, but if you want to, the option is there.

Once you have things set up, it will show a large screen with news, weather, sports, and more.

One of the first things you might want to do is switch to Compact view if you’re more used to that layout.

Much better…

Again with this version, it won’t automatically minimize to the System Tray (notification Area). So you might want to check out our article on moving it to the system tray in Windows 7.

Messenger Companion

This new tool allows you to share a webpage and discuss information while you’re browsing the web in Internet Explorer.

Windows Live Movie Maker Beta

The new beta version of Live Movie Maker has added more editing features, new visual effects, and ways of publishing them directly to the web. Or you can burn a DVD of your movie in versions of Vista and Windows 7 Home Premium or above.

Windows Live Writer Beta

Windows Live Writer has been changed as well to include the Ribbon interface and has more tools to help you post new articles to your blog easily. For more on the current stable version of WLW, check out our article on tools to help post content to your WordPress blog.

Windows Live Sync Beta

Windows Live Sync is meant to replace Live Mesh, which never left beta stage. It allows you to sync files and folders to other computers, online, and even between Windows and Mac (Live Sync for Mac is English only at this point).

This is one of the more exciting features in Windows Live Essentials Beta. We’ll definitely be covering more details on this as we get things tested.

Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta

Live Photo Gallery has also been overhauled and includes the Ribbon interface and more options for managing your photos. It includes Auto Adjust, quick searching, and the ability to share you photos on sites like Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube.

Windows Live Family Safety Beta

Live Family Safety as new features and helps protect you children while browsing the Internet. While it isn’t perfect, it does give you an extra tool to help protect your kids from questionable content while online.

Outlook Connector

Now included in Live Essentials is the Outlook Connector which lets you manage your Windows Live email, calendar, and contacts from Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010. Previously it was a separate download and is not included in the suite. The amount of features you have will depend on the version of Outlook you’re running. You can find out more about Outlook Connector from here.

Conclusion

This will give you a basic overview of what you can expect from the new Windows Live Essentials. We have a lot of research to do with these apps and will have more updated info on them in the future. Remember this is still in beta…but if you’re an early adopter, you might want to give the new Live Essentials Beta a try.

Download Windows Live Essentials Beta for Vista & Windows 7

Note: Works with Windows XP, Vista, & 7. The software author also notes on his website that you can manage multiple recycle bins located on the same hard disk from whichever Windows system you are currently logged in to.

Using RecycleBinEx

The program is very easy to work with and when started you will be able to view the current contents of the recycle bin as seen here. Notice that each item specifically shows the time that it was deleted.

If you have a lot of items in the recycle bin but are looking for certain files you can use the filter bar to easily locate them.

You can also select recycle bin items based on age using the drop-down menu.

The context menu for RecycleBinEx. You can choose to empty all of the contents or just those that were deleted from your system after a set amount of time (i.e. 15 days).

For our example we chose to completely shut the program down and do a complete removal of all recycle bin contents from the context menu. All items were removed without the program window having to open up.

And checking the recycle bin after opening/starting the program showed a nice empty recycle bin.

For those who prefer to have their desktop icons show this is what the context menu for the recycle bin will look like.

Out of curiosity we found out that you can run and view multiple instances of the program at the same time as seen here.

There are only a total of four options to worry with for the program. The main one for you to focus on is if you would like the program to start with your system each time or not.

Conclusion

RecycleBinEx is a small easy to use program that will make managing your recycle bin a snap.

Links

Download RecycleBinEx

Note: No account is required in order to use the extension. Do keep in mind that any websites that you mark as favorites will not be permanently saved without an account though.

The StumbleUpon Toolbar

Here is a quick look at the left side of the toolbar…

And a quick look at the right side. Height-wise it takes up about the same amount of room as the “Bookmarks Toolbar”.

Using the “Toolbar Icon” you can easily toggle the StumbleUpon Toolbar on and off.

Get ready to Stumble!

You can start “teaching” the toolbar what you like and to show you more of the same using the “I like this Button”.

Clicking on the “Share Button” will open a temporary drop-down “Sharing Pane”.

You can leave the “All Topics Setting” in place and really be surprised by the variety of websites that you will find or narrow the focus to subjects that you are specifically interested in. You can use the “Arrow Buttons” on each side to navigate back and forth between the two “subject panes”.

StumbleUpon in Action

For our example we chose the “Linux/Unix Category”. Here is the first page that came up for us…

A few more clicks and another great page to look at. Time to share it on Twitter…

Clicking on the “Twitter Button” will open a new window as shown here. If you are not logged in yet you will need to take care of that particular detail…

Once you are logged in the article name, website name, and a shortened StumbleUpon URL will be automatically pasted into a new tweet. Add anything else that you like and post the tweet.

Going one step further for the same article we tried the “Share Function”. Just add the appropriate e-mail address, your name, and any message that you want to include. Click “Share now” when you have finished.

Another stumble and yet another great website. That is definitely a classic help desk sign…

Conclusion

If you are having a slow day and want something new to look at then the StumbleUpon extension should provide the perfect solution to liven things up.

Links

Download the StumbleUpon extension (Google Chrome Extensions)