Tech For The Common Man

We’ve Moved!

Evan — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:19:23 +0000

Our new site is called Just Plain Tech and is twice as awesome as this one. Go see it now.

Pretty Up Your Windows Desktop with CD Art Display

Evan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:13:51 +0000

I’ve been wanting a program that does this for a long time, it’s so simple yet so elegant. CD Art Display is a free program for Windows that works with almost all popular windows media players (iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, foobar2000 but not Songbird) and then some. It takes the album art you already have tagged to your music and shows it on your desktop along with the name of the song, rating, artist, album and time left. Best of all it enables global hot-keys so that programs like iTunes, which lack them, can now be controlled easily from the keyboard.

gOS 3 Gadgets Beta Released

Evan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:46:52 +0000

If you haven’t heard of gOS yet then you’re missing out. Its an Ubuntu based version of Linux that relies heavily on Google products. The “g” in gOS doesn’t stand for Google though, it stands for “Good”, don’t get confused and think that Google makes it, because they don’t. It comes pre-installed on those cheap Everex computers that Walmart sells. Read on after the jump to find out more.

It’s free to download, like most Linux is, and really doesn’t offer much more than Ubuntu. You could argue its more user friendly. The main differences on first boot are the dock at the bottom of the screen, which can be added to Ubuntu with little effort. The newest version boasts Google gadget integration, which doesn’t seem like that big a deal. It’s a good OS for people new to Linux to take for a test drive.

Update: Apparently the new gOS uses LXDE a new lightweight desktop environment that works well on lighter hardware.

WTF is…Open Source?

Evan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:13:52 +0000

Open Source Initiative Logo

I figured I should give an explanation of Open Source before I do the Linux article. To put it simply Open Source is when a team of programmers releases the source code to the public so that other people can help out with the project. Two awesome things that come out of open source projects: free software and great software. You may have noticed that a lot of the software we review here at TFTCM is open source, and for good reason. Read after the jump to learn more.

I’m a huge supporter of open source software, because as I said its great software and its free. If you want a textbook example of popular open source software then look at Firefox, one of the best programs out there, and if you really wanted you could help out with its development. Now that I’ve set the foundation expect the WTF is…Linux article in the near future.

Free Game of the semi-week: Chronotron

Evan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:23:56 +0000

Any game that uses time travel is bound to be awesome. In Chronotron you solve puzzles by repeatedly going back in time and helping yourself out. Obviously the more difficult puzzles take a lot of planning and only make the game more addictive. You have to work together with your past self in order to accomplish tasks. Some of you may notice that the time machine is similar to the TARDIS in Doctor Who, that only makes the game more awesome. Go play it.

One Week Anniversary…A retrospective and a look to the future

Evan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:13:40 +0000

It has been one week since I started this blog, and it has come a long way. In that week our staff size has doubled, the number of readers increased by more than 2500% but we here at TFTCM are not nearly done. Expect some big changes coming in the near future possibly a move to a .com site. Due to ridiculous popularity we will change game of the week to game of the semi-week or hemi-week, I’m not sure what the correct term would be but expect twice as many games. I really like Luofei’s “Blast from the Past” ideas, so we’ll try to make more of those. Keep checking the site for updates because big things are in the works.

Wubi…Linux for People Afraid of Commitment

Evan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:44:05 +0000

I know you think Linux is only for nerds, but it’s not, in fact it’s super awesome. Many people are only afraid of Linux because they’ve never tried it, that’s where Wubi comes in. If you think you’re brave enough to install Linux without affecting your Windows install, read on after the jump.

Wubi’s main attraction is that its super easy to install and it has no affect on your Windows installation. If you don’t like it after you install it, its just as easy to remove as any program in windows, just use the normal remove programs utility. The one problem with wubi is it downloads the .iso file, and it takes forever. One way around this is to download Ubuntu Linux yourself because Wubi now comes packaged with it. The downside of downloading Ubuntu yourself is that you have to burn it to a CD if your not tech savvy enough to mount an .iso file (now that I’ve mentioned it I’ll post a how-to in the near future), but if you just download and run Wubi you don’t need to waste any CD’s. Once Wubi is finished installing there will be a little menu every time you boot your computer asking which OS to boot into, and if you don’t select anything then after a couple seconds it just boots Windows. Before you get all psyched to do this you’re gonna need at least 5GB free on your hard drive, and that’s the minimum. So go now, give Linux a chance, this way you can at least seem more knowledgeable than your peers.

TrueCrypt…for Security Crazed Conspiracy Theorists

Evan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:53:37 +0000

For the security conscious TrueCrypt is a must. It has several different encryption options, I’m not going to pretend to understand the difference between them but from what I understand they are all pretty ridiculous. Better yet it allows you to use multiple encryption layers at once, making your files super-secure. Best of all it works with Windows, Mac, and Linux, so if you have things on your computer you want to keep ridiculously private, TrueCrypt is the way to go.

P.S. TrueCrypt is also a good way to hide pornography from loved ones.

Dell Studio Hybrid = WebPC redux

Luofei — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:08:35 +0000

Dell just recently announced their Studio Hybrid desktop, a small form factor computer along the same lines as the Mac Mini, Asus Eee Box, or HP Slimline. The Studio Hybrid is being touted for being small, fashionable, and eco-friendly (there is even an option to have the case made out of bamboo). However, Dell’s new creation looks to me like an old creation revisited. Read the similarities between the defunct WebPC and the new Studio Hybrid after the jump.

The WebPC was sold for a brief period of time starting in 1999. Like the Studio Hybrid, it was supposed to be inexpensive and aesthetically designed to fit in where a tower would not. The WebPC even came in a choice of 5 color accents, much like how the Studio Hybrid is available in 7 colors (if you include bamboo as a color).

For Dell’s sake, I hope this new foray into the small form factor PC niche is more successful that the WebPC was. A shot of the WebPC is below for comparison.

Paintbrush: for Mac users suffering MS Paint withdrawal

Luofei — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:30:26 +0000

Only in the the last few years have I used a Mac as my primary computer. I still consider myself very tech agnostic though, and still use Windows with regularity and Linux every now and then. One of the programs I found myself missing the most when I moved to Mac OS X (besides Minesweeper) was MS Paint. OS X lacks a stupid-simple image editor/basic drawing tool. That’s why I was so glad when I found Paintbrush.

The user interface of Paintbrush is very similar to Paint and for the most part gives you the same functionality. For those of you looking for a simple, lightweight image/drawing tool for Macs, Paintbrush is well worth the download.

Download Paintbrush here