10 Tricks to Reduce your stress
Ref: http://www.harmoniousliving.co.za
“You largely constructed your depression. It wasn’t given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.” - Albert Ellis
Depression is one of those things that throws your entire life out of synch. And it camouflages itself so well: That headache that won’t go away; the knot in your stomach; the recurring mouth ulcer all signs of depression.
While it certainly would be nice to be able to just call a time out whenever you’re feeling a bit depressed, in the real world we actually have to learn how to manage it effectively.
And while serious depression calls for medications like Cymbalta, if all you need is some help rising above life’s little letdowns, try manipulating your mood with these quick mental fakeouts.
1. Put on a blue shirt.
Researchers found blue is generally relaxing (which is why shrinks tell their patients to stare at the sky), while orange is the biggest irritant. Red and purple, by the way, suggest power. Wear them to work and act like a big shot; people will subconsciously obey.
2. Pause your mental PVR.
Stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, and quickly count to ten while strongly pressing your right thumb and forefinger together. Now do the same with your left hand. Repeat five times. Mentally stepping away from your problems will clear your mind.
3. Recruit an anger buddy.
Find a thick-skinned friend who’ll let you verbally assault him when the situation warrants. Make sure you’re willing to return the favor. No takers? Go ahead and fire off a string of four-letter words — just make sure the tirade is brief, private, and somewhat controlled. A study by Norwich’s University of East Anglia (UEA) into leadership styles found the use of “taboo language” boosted team spirit.
4. Fabricate a smile.
Grin, laugh, waggle your eyebrows, walk with a bounce in your step, whistle. According to experts people who are manipulated into smiling report feeling better instantly. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions. Just try to remain angry with a smile on your face — it’s impossible.
5. Clean your room.
Most people don’t’ realize how much clutter causes stress, but it’s true that living in a mess can drain you of time, energy, and even money, creating significant amounts of additional stress. Visual confusion makes us uneasy, so remove jagged edges — pick clothes off the floor, remove glasses from the coffee table, make your bed. Visual confusion can work for you, too: Don’t want people to linger in your office? Clutter your desk.
6. Climb the stairway to heaven.
Music has been shown to reduce stress and have a positive effect on health. And you don’t need a therapist to enjoy some of the benefits music has to offer. Everyone responds to sound differently, but hearing your favorite music — whether it’s Zeppelin or Fresh Aire — will energize, motivate, and relax.
7. Order Chinese.
Call and order the ginger chicken with broccoli. According to recent research ginger and broccoli may temporarily help relieve depression. And throw your tastebuds a change-up by putting OJ in your coffee or peanut butter on your toast. Or eat something naturally contradictory, such as sweet-and-sour chicken. Varying textures work, too — try popcorn or nuts.
8. Dot your eyes.
Draw two dots an inch or so apart on a piece of white paper. Stare at the space between them with an out-of-focus gaze until they merge. Release and repeat three times. This instantly mellows.
9. Sniff a lemon.
So underrated, nice smells (fresh fruit, a looming thunderstorm, just-mowed grass) can turn your beat around. A good cigar may seem tempting, but tobacco is a downer. If stress has been bugging you for some time and you need a deeper sense of relaxation, go for herbs like Passionflower, Lemon Balm, and St. John’s Wort. As a stress relief, these herbs are excellent for stress due to overwork and nervous tension.
10. Chop till you drop.
Hack up an onion and pound a steak. Then dig out the Weber and fire it up. Let the aroma waft through the neighbourhood. Sit on a garden chair and drink a beer. You are now in touch with your primal self. Destroying and creating at the same time is the ultimate mood lifter. Soon, you will find it easier to smile.
The main thing to remember is that crankiness is just your brain’s response to outside stimuli, so if you change the stimuli, you can change your mood. Start doing it now!
For more, Please visit: http://www.harmoniousliving.co.za
Reinstall Windows and outfit your system with all freeware programs
Author: Samer
Source: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2007/10/29/reinstall-windows-and-outfit-your-system-with-all-freeware-programs/
I recently clean installed Windows XP on my laptop, and this meant that I had to re-install all the essential software that I use. It also presented an opportunity to write a posting about how you can outfit your computer with all the essential (and non-essential) software you need using strictly 100% freeware and/or open source titles.This posting could have been titled any of the following:
* How to never use a paid program again (aside from Windows).
* 53 essential freeware programs that can take care of the majority of your computing needs.
I am writing this from the perspective of myself clean-installing Windows and re-installing all the software I find to be essential afterwards. This post took a long time to write, please Digg and/or Stumble it ;).
Pre-installation: before reformatting my hard drive, I used the following programs:
Gparted Live CD: one of the easiest ways to preserve your data when you want to wipe your system clean is to create a secondary partition and move all of your data into it. Gparted Live CD is a fantastic program that can create and manage partitions and hold its own alongside any program of its kind, paid or otherwise.
Unstoppable Copier: I used this program to copy any of the data and files on the primary partition (C:) to the secondary partition. Unstoppable copier makes the process of moving large numbers of files easy because you can set it up and leave and be certain that the copying process will not be interrupted by pointless Windows dialogs such as “are you sure you want to move the read only file xxx” or any other possible prompts of this sort.
Amic Email Backup: can backup all of my Outlook email to the secondary partition ahead of the drive formatting (it can backup email from numerous programs except Thunderbird; if you use Thunderbird use Mozbackup). For another freeware alternative try EZ Email Backup.
DriverMax: I used this one to back up all my current drivers. DriverMax will backup all of your drivers locally and can optionally restore them for you. Although I have my manufacturer’s CD with all of the original drivers (and anyway they are all on the internet), I used DriveMax just in case; if it were the case that I am unable to locate a driver for any device after re-installing XP, I figure I could always go back to the drivers backup that I made with DriverMax and find it.
Produkey: used this program to keep a record of all the product keys for the Microsoft products that are on my system, including Windows XP and Office. Made a printout of this info and saved it on the secondary partition for later use. I found that unlike some other similar programs, this one doesn’t make antivirus/antispyware programs act up and react adversely to it.
Installation: re-installed Windows XP on the re-formatted primary partition. Used the CD that came with my laptop to install all the proper drivers without hitch. If you have drivers issues try to find the drivers you need on the internet and, if not 100% successful, use the ones from the DriverMax backup (#4 above). Once Windows was installed I did a Windows update (actually several, since it kept doing partial updates and restarting), then installed the Microsoft .NET framework and the latest Java RTE).
Post installation: now the fun begins.
PC Decrapifier: if you install Windows from a CD image disk provided with your computer then it is highly likely that it comes pre-loaded with all manner of junk software that the computer maker wants to foist on you. PC Decrapifier will batch-uninstall many of these for you; be careful, however, to check the list so as not to uninstall something you might want something you actually want.
DriveImage XML: used this program to create an image of my freshly clean installed hard drive. (A hard drive image is a backup of the drive as-is with everything in it; performing such a backup means that I can quickly revert to my clean install of Windows in the future simply by restoring the image). There’s a number of reasons why I like this program (a) it can split the image file into several files, allowing you to save an image that is larger than 4 gigs onto a hard drive that uses the FAT filesystem rather than NTFS; it features ’Volume Locking’ which contributes towards ensuring that your created images are error free, and it is featured on boot CDs such as BartCD, which means I can boot into it and restore the primary partition.
Launchy: everybody needs a good launcher, and Launchy is my favorite. Pressing a hotkey will prompt a dialog to appear whereby you can type in the first few letters of the name of the program that you want in order to launch it. Launchy will index your start menu and program files folders by default so that it will know all the programs available on your computer (you can define other folders for it to index as well). If you would like alternatives to this one checkout Key Launch and the very powerful Keybreeze.
AVG Antivirus: the reason this is the my free antivirus of choice is (a) it is very light on the system’s resources, (b) it does a simply excellent job,and (c) it supports email scan, which is something that I need (and which is why I use AVG rather than the excellent AntiVir). Secondary choice: Antivir. Third choice: Avast.
Spyware Terminator: provides very good real-time protection against spyware/malware. For system scans it also integrates the open source ClamAV virus killer, which it also auto updates. Overall this program provides a very good free antispyware solution. Note that it will attempt to install a “Web Security Guard” toolbar in the setup which I typically disable (I do not like toolbars installed in my browser thank you very much).
Comodo Firewall: this is not only an excellent free firewall, this program is a PC Magazine Editor’s choice and is possibly the best personal firewall out there, free or paid. According to Matousec.com’s latest firewall ratings, Comodo gets the highest overall firewall score as well as the highest anti-leak protection (these results as of the date of this writing Oct 20, 2007). (Thanks go to reader DevZero for mentioning this in the comments section of my Comodo Firewall review).
TweakUI: this powerful Windows tweaking tool from Microsoft is one of the best out there, IMHO. In general I do not like to have any of my data stored in the primary (C:) partition, and I use this program to switch many of Windows’ special folders (i.e. My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, My Favorites, and the Desktop itself) from their default locations to a new location on the secondary partition. Having no data on the primary partition means that I can create images of my hard drive with DriveImage XML (#7 above) and restore them at will at any point without having to worry about lost data. Later I will also change the default data storage locations for all programs that I use so that they are on the secondary partition as well. More interesting tweaks that TweakUI does that I should mention: customizing the placesbar in the windows open/save dialog and increasing the number of folder customizations that Windows would remember
OpenOffice: a world class office productivity suite and Microsoft Office replacement. OpenOffice can read and write MS Office 2003 documents in DOC (Word 2003) ,PPT (Powerpoint 2003) and XLS (Excel 2003) formats, and can also output documents in PDF format. Note that some MS Office documents that employ VBA Macro scripts may not be fully compatible with OpenOffice. (Ok, I have a confession to make: I actually install MS Office 2003 and 2007 both on my machine rather than OpenOffice, because (a) I need to use Outlook for work, (b) because most of my Excel work is done with VBA script, and (c) the licenses are paid for by my work). For the average user and for the purposes of this article, however, OpenOffice would be my free productivity suite of choice.
Forcevision Image Viewer: this is a very competent and straightforward free image viewer. Image viewing programs tend to be either (a) simple lightweight programs with few features but get the basic job done, (b) mid-level image viewers that have a good range of image editing options and features, some of which can do image format conversions (c) larger programs that have a comprehensive set of features and are typically extendible by plugins, and typically include the ability to read/write all manner of image formats including obscure ones. And although I know many people swear by Irfranview and Xnview, which would belong to category (c) in this case, for myself I prefer a mid-level program that I find can handle 99% of my image viewing needs, and Forcevision is the one I use. (Another good alternative: Faststone Image Viewer).
JZip: my current compression/zip utility of choice. Based on the 7 Zip open source archiver, JZip Can handle a good number of formats, has excellent compression ratio and speed as well as context menu integration. Other options that are good in this category are TugZip, IZArc, and ALzip (this last one might come as a surprise to some readers, but I actually used the new beta version for a few months and liked it).
CDBurnerXP 4: is the free program I use to burn CDs and DVDs; it is a full featured CD/DVD burning program that can burn audio CDs, copy CDs/DVDs, burn/convert ISOs images, and handle a large variety of formats (including Double layer DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs). My second program of choice would be InfraRecorder, which provides most of these functions as well.
JKDefrag GUI: this is the graphical user interface for JKDefrag a hard disk defragmentation program. There are 3 reasons why you should use this program (a) JKDefrag has recently been tested and found to be the best amongst x different defragmentation programs, free and paid, (b) it provides the option to install itself as a screen saver, which will kick-off the defragmentation process whenever your computer is idle and goes into screensaver mode, and (c) it is fast and delivers excellent performance (see this blog for an interesting comparison of free and commercial defraggers, where JKDefrag was deemed the best freeware defrag program)..
Folder Size: this free Windows Explorer extension provides a “Folder Size” column in Windows explorer’s ’Detail’ view that shows the size of both files and folders (Windows shows the size of files but not that of folders). My second choice for a for a free program that does this would be “Aurionix FileUsage“; the latter offers more columns but requires .NET and therefore much more resources than Folder Size does.
Pidgin: a fantastic IM client that supports multiple messaging protocols including AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC, SIP/SIMPLE, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Bonjour, Zephyr, MySpaceIM, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ. It enables you to access all of your instant messaging accounts for the above networks simultaneously in the same client. You can use it to communicate individually with other people or to create chat rooms where multiple people interact simultaneously. Pidgin has been improved continuously and it is my favorite IM client (they finally implemented minimizing to tray which was inexplicably lacking forever). My second choice in this category: Miranda IM, which also has matured greatly, or try Meebo, which performs this function but is a web service that you can use from anywhere rather than a program that you install locally.
Google Toolbar: this is the only toolbar that I install. Google Toolbar provides a quick searchbox your browser’s toolbar, but it also provides the ability to fill simple forms, quickly translate pages, and spell check your text that you enter in internet forms. See this posting for a description of how to do that.
CCleaner: a fantastic hard drive cleaner that can rid your system of temp files, internet traces such as your surfing history, cookies, logfiles, cached files and other unused files from your computer. Installer comes with Yahoo toolbar included, so be careful to uncheck that during the installation process so it doesn’t install on your computer. Also includes a registry cleaner.
Shock Sticker: a really nice desktop ’sticky notes’ program that provides rich text editing and minimizing notes to floating icon (which is why I like it). This is my favortie desktop notes program, although Stickies, another similar program, is also extremely good and has more features.
FolderICO: I really like to differentiate my folders with different colors and/or icons. FolderICO installs an entry into the Windows context menu that does this, but it also saves the changed icons within the folders such that the changed icon is preserved if, say, the folder is accessed on a network from another computer from a different operating system (or after a Windows re-install).
BeCyIconGrabber: if you work with icons you will love this one. It enables you not just to extract icon resources from files, but to do the opposite (save individual icons into libraries) which most like-programs do not. Very cool.
Alpass: an excellent password manager (for Internet Explorer only) that can store, encrypt, and fill in passwords and logins into forms for you. For another excellent program that performs a similar function check out Keepass.
Picasa: an excellent program from Google that can help manage your picture libraries as well as share/upload them online. Provides many picture enhancement functions, and is also a very nice viewer to boot.
Faststone Capture: a really powerful image capture program that is extremely easy to use and has a built in editor for adding annotations and image manipulations. Unfortunately this program has recently become shareware but you can still download and use the last freeware version (5.3). Check out Screenshot Captor for another excellent screenshot capture program. If you know another excellent screenshot capture program please mention it in the comments (I’d like to try something new).
GOM Media Player: a fantastic player that plays DVDs as well as video formats, including Real Media, Quicktime, DivX, Xvid and FLV. Whats is really nice about this program is that it is self-contained and uses all internal codecs (meaning that in most cases it will not install codecs on your system). If, however, it encounters a video file that it cannot play it will automatically download it for you.
I chose this one over my other favorite, VLC media player, because it handles FLV videos better (allows you to jump to the middle of an FLV video, which the current version of VLC does not). It also has a nicer look and feel, IMHO, esp. when playing DVDs.
Also check out CodecInstaller, an excellent program that can identify, download, and install the codecs needed to play any media file (regardless of the player you are using)
Quintessential Media Player: supports most audio formats. It is simultaneously (a) a very nice player, (b) a competent tag editor, (c) a CD ripper with CDDB database support, and (d) and audio formats converter. Also features an equalizer, visualizations, and skins and is extendable through plugins. One of the nicer abilities is autotagging, which it does through digital thumbprinting and CDDB. (Note: album art is supported through a plugin, or use the cool CD Art Display).
Mediamonkey is another excellent program that also provides CD ripping, mp3 tag management, downloading of album art, audio format conversion, visualizations, skins, and equalizer, etc. Mediamonkey is vastly extendible though plugins and has a large community following.
MP3Tag: a fantastic MP3 tag/metadata manager that can download album art from Amazon and save it into the audio file itself. I’ve used a number of similar programs but like this one most because of it’s straightforward interface and user experience. Try The Godfather for another free alternative (note that the audio players mentioned in #29 above also provide MP3 tag management, which might be sufficient for most people’s needs).
MusicBrainz Picard: use this program if your audio files have incomplete and or missing tags. Picard uses sophisticated digital fingerprinting to compare audio files to the community-created MusicBrainz database. It employs a different technology than Quintessential Media Player (#29 above) and can in the most cases auto-tag audio files that have no tags whatever.
Exact Audio Copy: an audio CD ripper that reads audio CDs “almost perfectly” (i.e. produces very high quality MP3s), connects to CDDB/Freedb to get track information, and supports a handful of audio file formats. Another favorite of mine that does the same thing is BonkEnc. (Note that the audio players mentioned in #29 above also provide competent audio CD ripping). If you are looking for an excellent audio file converter try Any Audio Converter which supports most audio formats as well as FLV and can demux audio from video files.
MP3gain: this program can analyze a group of MP3s and determine the average volume for each, and then raise and/or lower the volume of the files in order to “normalize” them (such that volume differences that might occur when one song transitions to another largely disappear). The cool thing is that it does this without re-encoding the files and its intervention is reversible. Another program that has this same function: MP3Trim.
Unlocker: this small memory resident program will pop-up whenever you encounter a file that is locked by a process or another program which prevents you from deleting or moving it. Once you install and use this you will start to consider it a must have program. (Also see this related post).
Orbit Downloader: is an excellent download manager that has the unique ability to download streaming media (audio and video, as well as flash SWF) from video sharing and other sites. Another excellent download manager: FlashGet.
WinSCP: if you need an FTP client WinSCP is an excellent program that supports FTP and SFTP (as well as the legacy SCP), allows for secure transfers, and features dual pane file-manager like functionalities (such as sorting and comparing directories). It also allows for session saving (i.e. a bookmarking functionality), with the option to create entries in the Windows’ send-to menu for uploading files straight from Windows.
FileZilla is another competent, free program that is constantly improving and supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS. If you want a very nice program that integrates FTP support into explorer through the Windows’ right-click context menu check out RightLoad.
Local Website Archive: is a program that saves individual webpages locally on your hard drive, including pictures and formatting, and allows for later viewing even if offline. What’s cool about this one is that it saves websites in the original HTML format and therefore allows you to reference the local URL of the saved webpage in your notes program or other applications. Another alternative that I used for a long time until I found Local Website Archive: Evernote.
Flashnote: a quick and handy scratch-pad that pops-up when you press a hotkey and disappears back into the background again when you minimize it (or press the hotkey again). You can store multiple notes in it and quickly retrieve them when needed (its not a full-fledged notes program, but nonetheless has become a must install on my machine).
Revo Uninstaller: my uninstaller of choice, Revo Uninstaller will uninstall a program and then look for any files and/or registry entries that were left behind by the program’s uninstaller (and does a beautiful job at that). Be carful to look at the entries that it identifies for deletion post-uninstall, as it will sometimes list registry entries and/or files that should not be removed. Revo also provides a slew of other tools such as a startup manager and hard drive cleaner.
Another nice uninstaller which I used previously is ZSoft Uninstaller; this one will not uninstall programs as thoroughly as Revo does, but on the other hand will not erroneously remove registry entries or files that should be left alone.
BitTyrant: this is the free torrent client that I’ve been using for some time. What it is is a modified version of Azureus that, controversially, picks and chooses peers to allocate bandwidth to such that those who are providing more bandwidth for downloaded files receive more of your own bandwidth (which is why it is sometimes called the ’selfish’ bittorent client). It is claimed that this can result in up to 70% faster downloads, but the reason this is controversial is that peers with lower connection speeds or are not sharing files may be overlooked by this program (read more about it here). Other excellent free torrent clients: uTorrent, Azureus.
Starter: a small, no-install program which does a fantastic job managing the programs that start with Windows. (I’ve tried many, and this is the one I like the most). Note that Revo Uninstaller (#39 above) provides a built in startup programs manager as well.
Send To Toys: use this program to add any folder to the explorer “send to” menu, which allows you to quickly copy or move any file to your favorite or most used folders.
Returnil: a system virtualization program that allows you to surf dangerous sites and/or install and test software or implement any desired changes then restart your system to get it back to the state it was before said changes.
SysTrayMeter: a small program that shows your processor usage and free memory in the system tray. Invaluable if you like to keep an eye on your available resources, and very useful in troubleshooting a problematic or slow system.
For more infomation, please visit this excellent web site:http://www.freewaregenius.com
Source: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2007/10/29/reinstall-windows-and-outfit-your-system-with-all-freeware-programs/
I recently clean installed Windows XP on my laptop, and this meant that I had to re-install all the essential software that I use. It also presented an opportunity to write a posting about how you can outfit your computer with all the essential (and non-essential) software you need using strictly 100% freeware and/or open source titles.This posting could have been titled any of the following:
* How to never use a paid program again (aside from Windows).
* 53 essential freeware programs that can take care of the majority of your computing needs.
I am writing this from the perspective of myself clean-installing Windows and re-installing all the software I find to be essential afterwards. This post took a long time to write, please Digg and/or Stumble it ;).
Pre-installation: before reformatting my hard drive, I used the following programs:
Gparted Live CD: one of the easiest ways to preserve your data when you want to wipe your system clean is to create a secondary partition and move all of your data into it. Gparted Live CD is a fantastic program that can create and manage partitions and hold its own alongside any program of its kind, paid or otherwise.
Unstoppable Copier: I used this program to copy any of the data and files on the primary partition (C:) to the secondary partition. Unstoppable copier makes the process of moving large numbers of files easy because you can set it up and leave and be certain that the copying process will not be interrupted by pointless Windows dialogs such as “are you sure you want to move the read only file xxx” or any other possible prompts of this sort.
Amic Email Backup: can backup all of my Outlook email to the secondary partition ahead of the drive formatting (it can backup email from numerous programs except Thunderbird; if you use Thunderbird use Mozbackup). For another freeware alternative try EZ Email Backup.
DriverMax: I used this one to back up all my current drivers. DriverMax will backup all of your drivers locally and can optionally restore them for you. Although I have my manufacturer’s CD with all of the original drivers (and anyway they are all on the internet), I used DriveMax just in case; if it were the case that I am unable to locate a driver for any device after re-installing XP, I figure I could always go back to the drivers backup that I made with DriverMax and find it.
Produkey: used this program to keep a record of all the product keys for the Microsoft products that are on my system, including Windows XP and Office. Made a printout of this info and saved it on the secondary partition for later use. I found that unlike some other similar programs, this one doesn’t make antivirus/antispyware programs act up and react adversely to it.
Installation: re-installed Windows XP on the re-formatted primary partition. Used the CD that came with my laptop to install all the proper drivers without hitch. If you have drivers issues try to find the drivers you need on the internet and, if not 100% successful, use the ones from the DriverMax backup (#4 above). Once Windows was installed I did a Windows update (actually several, since it kept doing partial updates and restarting), then installed the Microsoft .NET framework and the latest Java RTE).
Post installation: now the fun begins.
PC Decrapifier: if you install Windows from a CD image disk provided with your computer then it is highly likely that it comes pre-loaded with all manner of junk software that the computer maker wants to foist on you. PC Decrapifier will batch-uninstall many of these for you; be careful, however, to check the list so as not to uninstall something you might want something you actually want.
DriveImage XML: used this program to create an image of my freshly clean installed hard drive. (A hard drive image is a backup of the drive as-is with everything in it; performing such a backup means that I can quickly revert to my clean install of Windows in the future simply by restoring the image). There’s a number of reasons why I like this program (a) it can split the image file into several files, allowing you to save an image that is larger than 4 gigs onto a hard drive that uses the FAT filesystem rather than NTFS; it features ’Volume Locking’ which contributes towards ensuring that your created images are error free, and it is featured on boot CDs such as BartCD, which means I can boot into it and restore the primary partition.
Launchy: everybody needs a good launcher, and Launchy is my favorite. Pressing a hotkey will prompt a dialog to appear whereby you can type in the first few letters of the name of the program that you want in order to launch it. Launchy will index your start menu and program files folders by default so that it will know all the programs available on your computer (you can define other folders for it to index as well). If you would like alternatives to this one checkout Key Launch and the very powerful Keybreeze.
AVG Antivirus: the reason this is the my free antivirus of choice is (a) it is very light on the system’s resources, (b) it does a simply excellent job,and (c) it supports email scan, which is something that I need (and which is why I use AVG rather than the excellent AntiVir). Secondary choice: Antivir. Third choice: Avast.
Spyware Terminator: provides very good real-time protection against spyware/malware. For system scans it also integrates the open source ClamAV virus killer, which it also auto updates. Overall this program provides a very good free antispyware solution. Note that it will attempt to install a “Web Security Guard” toolbar in the setup which I typically disable (I do not like toolbars installed in my browser thank you very much).
Comodo Firewall: this is not only an excellent free firewall, this program is a PC Magazine Editor’s choice and is possibly the best personal firewall out there, free or paid. According to Matousec.com’s latest firewall ratings, Comodo gets the highest overall firewall score as well as the highest anti-leak protection (these results as of the date of this writing Oct 20, 2007). (Thanks go to reader DevZero for mentioning this in the comments section of my Comodo Firewall review).
TweakUI: this powerful Windows tweaking tool from Microsoft is one of the best out there, IMHO. In general I do not like to have any of my data stored in the primary (C:) partition, and I use this program to switch many of Windows’ special folders (i.e. My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, My Favorites, and the Desktop itself) from their default locations to a new location on the secondary partition. Having no data on the primary partition means that I can create images of my hard drive with DriveImage XML (#7 above) and restore them at will at any point without having to worry about lost data. Later I will also change the default data storage locations for all programs that I use so that they are on the secondary partition as well. More interesting tweaks that TweakUI does that I should mention: customizing the placesbar in the windows open/save dialog and increasing the number of folder customizations that Windows would remember
OpenOffice: a world class office productivity suite and Microsoft Office replacement. OpenOffice can read and write MS Office 2003 documents in DOC (Word 2003) ,PPT (Powerpoint 2003) and XLS (Excel 2003) formats, and can also output documents in PDF format. Note that some MS Office documents that employ VBA Macro scripts may not be fully compatible with OpenOffice. (Ok, I have a confession to make: I actually install MS Office 2003 and 2007 both on my machine rather than OpenOffice, because (a) I need to use Outlook for work, (b) because most of my Excel work is done with VBA script, and (c) the licenses are paid for by my work). For the average user and for the purposes of this article, however, OpenOffice would be my free productivity suite of choice.
Forcevision Image Viewer: this is a very competent and straightforward free image viewer. Image viewing programs tend to be either (a) simple lightweight programs with few features but get the basic job done, (b) mid-level image viewers that have a good range of image editing options and features, some of which can do image format conversions (c) larger programs that have a comprehensive set of features and are typically extendible by plugins, and typically include the ability to read/write all manner of image formats including obscure ones. And although I know many people swear by Irfranview and Xnview, which would belong to category (c) in this case, for myself I prefer a mid-level program that I find can handle 99% of my image viewing needs, and Forcevision is the one I use. (Another good alternative: Faststone Image Viewer).
JZip: my current compression/zip utility of choice. Based on the 7 Zip open source archiver, JZip Can handle a good number of formats, has excellent compression ratio and speed as well as context menu integration. Other options that are good in this category are TugZip, IZArc, and ALzip (this last one might come as a surprise to some readers, but I actually used the new beta version for a few months and liked it).
CDBurnerXP 4: is the free program I use to burn CDs and DVDs; it is a full featured CD/DVD burning program that can burn audio CDs, copy CDs/DVDs, burn/convert ISOs images, and handle a large variety of formats (including Double layer DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs). My second program of choice would be InfraRecorder, which provides most of these functions as well.
JKDefrag GUI: this is the graphical user interface for JKDefrag a hard disk defragmentation program. There are 3 reasons why you should use this program (a) JKDefrag has recently been tested and found to be the best amongst x different defragmentation programs, free and paid, (b) it provides the option to install itself as a screen saver, which will kick-off the defragmentation process whenever your computer is idle and goes into screensaver mode, and (c) it is fast and delivers excellent performance (see this blog for an interesting comparison of free and commercial defraggers, where JKDefrag was deemed the best freeware defrag program)..
Folder Size: this free Windows Explorer extension provides a “Folder Size” column in Windows explorer’s ’Detail’ view that shows the size of both files and folders (Windows shows the size of files but not that of folders). My second choice for a for a free program that does this would be “Aurionix FileUsage“; the latter offers more columns but requires .NET and therefore much more resources than Folder Size does.
Pidgin: a fantastic IM client that supports multiple messaging protocols including AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC, SIP/SIMPLE, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Bonjour, Zephyr, MySpaceIM, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ. It enables you to access all of your instant messaging accounts for the above networks simultaneously in the same client. You can use it to communicate individually with other people or to create chat rooms where multiple people interact simultaneously. Pidgin has been improved continuously and it is my favorite IM client (they finally implemented minimizing to tray which was inexplicably lacking forever). My second choice in this category: Miranda IM, which also has matured greatly, or try Meebo, which performs this function but is a web service that you can use from anywhere rather than a program that you install locally.
Google Toolbar: this is the only toolbar that I install. Google Toolbar provides a quick searchbox your browser’s toolbar, but it also provides the ability to fill simple forms, quickly translate pages, and spell check your text that you enter in internet forms. See this posting for a description of how to do that.
CCleaner: a fantastic hard drive cleaner that can rid your system of temp files, internet traces such as your surfing history, cookies, logfiles, cached files and other unused files from your computer. Installer comes with Yahoo toolbar included, so be careful to uncheck that during the installation process so it doesn’t install on your computer. Also includes a registry cleaner.
Shock Sticker: a really nice desktop ’sticky notes’ program that provides rich text editing and minimizing notes to floating icon (which is why I like it). This is my favortie desktop notes program, although Stickies, another similar program, is also extremely good and has more features.
FolderICO: I really like to differentiate my folders with different colors and/or icons. FolderICO installs an entry into the Windows context menu that does this, but it also saves the changed icons within the folders such that the changed icon is preserved if, say, the folder is accessed on a network from another computer from a different operating system (or after a Windows re-install).
BeCyIconGrabber: if you work with icons you will love this one. It enables you not just to extract icon resources from files, but to do the opposite (save individual icons into libraries) which most like-programs do not. Very cool.
Alpass: an excellent password manager (for Internet Explorer only) that can store, encrypt, and fill in passwords and logins into forms for you. For another excellent program that performs a similar function check out Keepass.
Picasa: an excellent program from Google that can help manage your picture libraries as well as share/upload them online. Provides many picture enhancement functions, and is also a very nice viewer to boot.
Faststone Capture: a really powerful image capture program that is extremely easy to use and has a built in editor for adding annotations and image manipulations. Unfortunately this program has recently become shareware but you can still download and use the last freeware version (5.3). Check out Screenshot Captor for another excellent screenshot capture program. If you know another excellent screenshot capture program please mention it in the comments (I’d like to try something new).
GOM Media Player: a fantastic player that plays DVDs as well as video formats, including Real Media, Quicktime, DivX, Xvid and FLV. Whats is really nice about this program is that it is self-contained and uses all internal codecs (meaning that in most cases it will not install codecs on your system). If, however, it encounters a video file that it cannot play it will automatically download it for you.
I chose this one over my other favorite, VLC media player, because it handles FLV videos better (allows you to jump to the middle of an FLV video, which the current version of VLC does not). It also has a nicer look and feel, IMHO, esp. when playing DVDs.
Also check out CodecInstaller, an excellent program that can identify, download, and install the codecs needed to play any media file (regardless of the player you are using)
Quintessential Media Player: supports most audio formats. It is simultaneously (a) a very nice player, (b) a competent tag editor, (c) a CD ripper with CDDB database support, and (d) and audio formats converter. Also features an equalizer, visualizations, and skins and is extendable through plugins. One of the nicer abilities is autotagging, which it does through digital thumbprinting and CDDB. (Note: album art is supported through a plugin, or use the cool CD Art Display).
Mediamonkey is another excellent program that also provides CD ripping, mp3 tag management, downloading of album art, audio format conversion, visualizations, skins, and equalizer, etc. Mediamonkey is vastly extendible though plugins and has a large community following.
MP3Tag: a fantastic MP3 tag/metadata manager that can download album art from Amazon and save it into the audio file itself. I’ve used a number of similar programs but like this one most because of it’s straightforward interface and user experience. Try The Godfather for another free alternative (note that the audio players mentioned in #29 above also provide MP3 tag management, which might be sufficient for most people’s needs).
MusicBrainz Picard: use this program if your audio files have incomplete and or missing tags. Picard uses sophisticated digital fingerprinting to compare audio files to the community-created MusicBrainz database. It employs a different technology than Quintessential Media Player (#29 above) and can in the most cases auto-tag audio files that have no tags whatever.
Exact Audio Copy: an audio CD ripper that reads audio CDs “almost perfectly” (i.e. produces very high quality MP3s), connects to CDDB/Freedb to get track information, and supports a handful of audio file formats. Another favorite of mine that does the same thing is BonkEnc. (Note that the audio players mentioned in #29 above also provide competent audio CD ripping). If you are looking for an excellent audio file converter try Any Audio Converter which supports most audio formats as well as FLV and can demux audio from video files.
MP3gain: this program can analyze a group of MP3s and determine the average volume for each, and then raise and/or lower the volume of the files in order to “normalize” them (such that volume differences that might occur when one song transitions to another largely disappear). The cool thing is that it does this without re-encoding the files and its intervention is reversible. Another program that has this same function: MP3Trim.
Unlocker: this small memory resident program will pop-up whenever you encounter a file that is locked by a process or another program which prevents you from deleting or moving it. Once you install and use this you will start to consider it a must have program. (Also see this related post).
Orbit Downloader: is an excellent download manager that has the unique ability to download streaming media (audio and video, as well as flash SWF) from video sharing and other sites. Another excellent download manager: FlashGet.
WinSCP: if you need an FTP client WinSCP is an excellent program that supports FTP and SFTP (as well as the legacy SCP), allows for secure transfers, and features dual pane file-manager like functionalities (such as sorting and comparing directories). It also allows for session saving (i.e. a bookmarking functionality), with the option to create entries in the Windows’ send-to menu for uploading files straight from Windows.
FileZilla is another competent, free program that is constantly improving and supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS. If you want a very nice program that integrates FTP support into explorer through the Windows’ right-click context menu check out RightLoad.
Local Website Archive: is a program that saves individual webpages locally on your hard drive, including pictures and formatting, and allows for later viewing even if offline. What’s cool about this one is that it saves websites in the original HTML format and therefore allows you to reference the local URL of the saved webpage in your notes program or other applications. Another alternative that I used for a long time until I found Local Website Archive: Evernote.
Flashnote: a quick and handy scratch-pad that pops-up when you press a hotkey and disappears back into the background again when you minimize it (or press the hotkey again). You can store multiple notes in it and quickly retrieve them when needed (its not a full-fledged notes program, but nonetheless has become a must install on my machine).
Revo Uninstaller: my uninstaller of choice, Revo Uninstaller will uninstall a program and then look for any files and/or registry entries that were left behind by the program’s uninstaller (and does a beautiful job at that). Be carful to look at the entries that it identifies for deletion post-uninstall, as it will sometimes list registry entries and/or files that should not be removed. Revo also provides a slew of other tools such as a startup manager and hard drive cleaner.
Another nice uninstaller which I used previously is ZSoft Uninstaller; this one will not uninstall programs as thoroughly as Revo does, but on the other hand will not erroneously remove registry entries or files that should be left alone.
BitTyrant: this is the free torrent client that I’ve been using for some time. What it is is a modified version of Azureus that, controversially, picks and chooses peers to allocate bandwidth to such that those who are providing more bandwidth for downloaded files receive more of your own bandwidth (which is why it is sometimes called the ’selfish’ bittorent client). It is claimed that this can result in up to 70% faster downloads, but the reason this is controversial is that peers with lower connection speeds or are not sharing files may be overlooked by this program (read more about it here). Other excellent free torrent clients: uTorrent, Azureus.
Starter: a small, no-install program which does a fantastic job managing the programs that start with Windows. (I’ve tried many, and this is the one I like the most). Note that Revo Uninstaller (#39 above) provides a built in startup programs manager as well.
Send To Toys: use this program to add any folder to the explorer “send to” menu, which allows you to quickly copy or move any file to your favorite or most used folders.
Returnil: a system virtualization program that allows you to surf dangerous sites and/or install and test software or implement any desired changes then restart your system to get it back to the state it was before said changes.
SysTrayMeter: a small program that shows your processor usage and free memory in the system tray. Invaluable if you like to keep an eye on your available resources, and very useful in troubleshooting a problematic or slow system.
For more infomation, please visit this excellent web site:http://www.freewaregenius.com
Artificial Cornea Gives Hope To The Blind
Ref: http://www.hiptechblog.com/
Major advancements in technology like this one are what makes the future worth looking forward to. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have invented an artificial cornea that may well be the key to restoring sight for our people with damaged corneas.
“Our artificial corneas are based on a commercially available polymer which absorbs no water and allows no cells to grow on it,” says IAP project manager Dr. Joachim Storsberg. “Once our partner Dr. Schmidt Intraokularlinsen GmbH has suitably shaped the polymers, we selectively coat the implants: We lay masks on them and apply a special protein to the edge of the cornea, which the cells of the natural cornea can latch onto. In this way, the cornea implant can firmly connect with the natural part of the cornea, while the center remains free of cells and therefore clear.” What is special about this protein is that it can survive the later thermal sterilization of the artificial cornea without being damaged, as it does not have the three-dimensional structure typical of large proteins. Such a structure would be destroyed during the sterilization process, leading to changes in the material’s properties. The optical front part of the implant is coated with a hydrophilic polymer, so that it is constantly moistened with tear fluid.
Researchers in Dr. Karin Kobuch’s working group at Regensburg University Hospital have already tested these corneas in the laboratory and found that their cells graft very well at the edge and cease growing where the coating stops. The optical center of the implant thus remains clear. The first implants have already been tested in rabbits’ eyes - with promising results. If further tests are successful, the technology will be tried on humans in 2008.”
For more information, please visit: http://www.hiptechblog.com/
Major advancements in technology like this one are what makes the future worth looking forward to. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have invented an artificial cornea that may well be the key to restoring sight for our people with damaged corneas.
“Our artificial corneas are based on a commercially available polymer which absorbs no water and allows no cells to grow on it,” says IAP project manager Dr. Joachim Storsberg. “Once our partner Dr. Schmidt Intraokularlinsen GmbH has suitably shaped the polymers, we selectively coat the implants: We lay masks on them and apply a special protein to the edge of the cornea, which the cells of the natural cornea can latch onto. In this way, the cornea implant can firmly connect with the natural part of the cornea, while the center remains free of cells and therefore clear.” What is special about this protein is that it can survive the later thermal sterilization of the artificial cornea without being damaged, as it does not have the three-dimensional structure typical of large proteins. Such a structure would be destroyed during the sterilization process, leading to changes in the material’s properties. The optical front part of the implant is coated with a hydrophilic polymer, so that it is constantly moistened with tear fluid.
Researchers in Dr. Karin Kobuch’s working group at Regensburg University Hospital have already tested these corneas in the laboratory and found that their cells graft very well at the edge and cease growing where the coating stops. The optical center of the implant thus remains clear. The first implants have already been tested in rabbits’ eyes - with promising results. If further tests are successful, the technology will be tried on humans in 2008.”
For more information, please visit: http://www.hiptechblog.com/
Fastest Tank
Rip Saw UGV Tank Fast as a Motorcycle, Yours For Only $200,000
(Ref: Gizmodo)
Rip-1webHQ.jpgFirst introduced in 2005, the Rip Saw is about to hit the market with a $200,000 price tag. The custom-built UGV can hit 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, go 80 mph, and can manoeuvre over any surface or terrain a tank can. And the video is pretty good; watch as it drives through a barn as if it were the cardboard boxen your handset came in.
The privately-funded Rip Saw was first built by the Howe brothers for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Though the Rip Saw didn't win, its video certainly turned some heads, enough to find funding to build more than one. I normally don't get too excited about military shit like this, but any machine that can obliterate a wood shack with ease and turn donuts on snow wins my heart. Check out the 2005 teaser vid to see what i mean. [Howe and Howe via Red Ferret via Geekologie]
For more info please visit: Gizmodo
Self Actusalization
SELF ACTUALIZATION
(Ref: psikoloji.fisek.com.tr)
"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."
Abraham Maslow
Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.
The characteristics listed here are the results of 20 years of study of people who had the "full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.."
Self-actualization implies the attainment of the basic needs of physiological, safety/security, love/belongingness, and self-esteem.
Maslow's Basic Principles:
1. The normal personality is characterized by unity, integration, consistency, and coherence. Organization is the natural state, and disorganization is pathological.
2. The organism can be analyzed by differentiating its parts, but no part can be studied in isolation. The whole functions according to laws that cannot be found in the parts.
3. The organism has one sovereign drive, that of self-actualization. People strive continuously to realize their inherent potential by whatever avenues are open to them.
4. The influence of the external environment on normal development is minimal. The organism's potential, if allowed to unfold by an appropriate environment, will produce a healthy, integrated personality.
5. The comprehensive study of one person is more useful than the extensive investigation, in many people, of an isolated psychological function.
6. The salvation of the human being is not to be found in either behaviorism or in psychoanalysis, (which deals with only the darker, meaner half of the individual). We must deal with the questions of value, individuality, consciousness, purpose, ethics and the higher reaches of human nature.
7. Man is basically good not evil.
8. Psychopathology generally results from the denial, frustration or twisting of our essential nature.
9. Therapy of any sort, is a means of restoring a person to the path of self-actualization and development along the lines dictated by their inner nature.
10. When the four basic needs have been satisfied, the growth need or self-actualization need arises: A new discontent and restlessness will develop unless the individual is doing what he individually is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write--in short, what people can be they must be.
Characteristics of Self Actualizing People
Realistic
Realistically oriented, SA persons have a more efficient perception of reality, they have comfortable relations with it. This is extended to all areas of life. SA persons are unthreatened, unfrightened by the unknown. they have a superior ability to reason, to see the truth. They are logical and efficient.
Acceptance
Accept themselves, others and the natural world the way they are. Sees human nature as is, have a lack of crippling guilt or shame, enjoy themselves without regret or apology, they have no unnecessary inhibitions.
Spontaneity, Simplicity, Naturalness
Spontaneous in their inner life, thoughts and impulses, they are unhampered by convention. Their ethics is autonomous, they are individuals, and are motivated to continual growth.
Problem Centering
Focus on problems outside themselves, other centered. They have a mission in life requiring much energy, their mission is their reason for existence. They are serene, characterized by a lack of worry, and are devoted to duty.
Detachment: The Need for Privacy
Alone but not lonely, unflappable, retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, objective. They are self starters, responsible for themselves, own their behavior.
Autonomy: Independent of Culture and Environment
SA's rely on inner self for satisfaction. Stable in the face of hard knocks, they are self contained, independent from love and respect.
Continued Freshness of Appreciation
Have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and things. Appreciation of the basic good in life, moment to moment living is thrilling, transcending and spiritual. They live the present moment to the fullest.
Peak experiences
"Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstacy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences." Abraham Maslow
Maslow asked his subjects to think of the most wonderful experience or experiences of their lives--the happiest moments, extatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in live, or from listening to music or suddenly "being hit" by a book or a painting or from some great creative moment. He found that people undergoing peak experiences felt more integrated, more at one with the world, more in command of their own lives, more spontaneous, less aware of space and time, more perceptive, more self determined, more playful.
Effects of peak experiences:
* The removal of neurotic symptoms
* A tendency to view oneself in a more healthy way
* Change in one's view of other people and of one's relations with them
* Change in one's view of the world
* The release of creativity, spontaneity and expressiveness
* A tendency to remember the experience and to try to duplicate it
* A tendency to view life in general as more worthwhile.
Gemeinschaftsgefuhl
Identification, sympathy, and affection for mankind, kinship with the good, the bad and the ugly, older-brother attitude. Truth is clear to him, can see things others cannot see.
Interpersonal relations
Profound, intimate relationships with few. Capable of greater love than others consider possible. Benevolence, affection and friendliness shown to everyone.
Democratic values and attitudes
Able to learn from anyone, humble. Friendly with anyone regardless of class, education, political belief, race or color.
Discrimination: means and ends, Good and Evil
Do not confuse between means and ends. They do no do wrong. Enjoy the here and now, getting to goal--not just the result. They make the most tedious task an enjoyable game. They have their own inner moral standards (appearing amoral to others).
Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
Jokes are teaching metaphors, intrinsic to the situation, spontaneous, can laugh at themselves, never make jokes that hurt others.
Creativity
Inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything they do, see the real and true more easily, original, inventive and less inhibited.
Resistance to enculturation: Transcendence of any particular culture
Inner detachment from culture, folkways are used but of no consequence, calm long term culture improvement, indignation with injustice, inner autonomy and outer acceptance. Transcend the environment rather than just cope.
Imperfections
Painfully aware of own imperfections, joyfully aware of own growth process. Impatient with self when stuck, real life pain, not imagined.
Values
Philosophical acceptance of the nature of his self, human nature, social life, nature, physical reality, remains realistically human.
Resolution of dichotomies
Polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon, as though the two have united, work becomes play, most childlike person is most wise, opposite forces no longer felt as a conflict. Desires are in excellent accord with reason.
Maslow says there are two processes necessary for self-actualization: self exploration and action. The deeper the self exploration, the closer one comes to self-actualization.
EIGHT WAYS TO SELF ACTUALIZE
1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.
2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don't like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses--and then finding the courage to give them up.
SELF ACTUALIZATION
Maslow (1954), believed that man has a natural drive to healthiness, or self actualization. He believed that man has basic, (biological and psychological) needs that have to be fulfilled in order to be free enough to feel the desire for the higher levels of realization. He also believed that the organism has the natural, unconscious and innate capacity to seek its needs. (Maslow 1968)
In other words, man has an internal, natural, drive to become the best possible person he can be.
"...he has within him a pressure toward unity of personality, toward spontaneous expressiveness, toward full individuality and identity, toward seeing the truth rather than being blind, toward being creative, toward being good, and a lot else. That is, the human being is so constructed that he presses toward what most people would call good values, toward serenity, kindness, courage, honesty, love, unselfishness, and goodness." (Maslow, 1968, p. 155.)
Maslow believed that not only does the organism know what it needs to eat to maintain itself healthy, but also man knows intuitively what he needs to become the best possible, mentally healthy and happy "being". I use the word "being" because Maslow goes far beyond what the average person considers good physical and mental health. He talked about higher consciousness, esthetic and peak experiences, and Being. He stressed the importance of moral and ethical behavior that will lead man naturally to discovering, becoming himself.
"The state of being without a system of values is psychopathogenic, we are learning. The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense he needs sunlight, calcium or love. This I have called the "cognitive need to understand." The value- illnesses which result from valuelessness are called variously anhedonia, anomie, apathy, amorality, hopelessness, cynicism, etc., and can become somatic illness as well. Historically, we are in a value interregnum in which all externally given value systems have proven failures (political, economic, religious, etc.) e.g., nothing is worth dying for. What man needs but doesn't have, he seeks for unceasingly, and he becomes dangerously ready to jump at any hope, good or bad. The cure for this disease is obvious. We need a validated, usable system of human values that we can believe in and devote ourselves to (be willing to die for), because they are true rather than because we are exhorted to "believe and have faith." Such an empirically based Weltanschauung seems now to be a real possibility, at least in theoretical outline." (Maslow, 1968, p. 206.)
Morality then is natural. If we use our capacity to think, are honest, sincere and open, we arrive at moral and ethical behavior naturally. The problem is to not destroy our ability to become ourselves.
"Pure spontaneity consists of free, uninhibited uncontrolled, trusting, unpremeditated expression of the self, i.e., of the psychic forces, with minimal interference by consciousness. Control, will, caution, self-criticism, measure, deliberateness are the brakes upon this expression made intrinsically necessary by the laws of the social and natural world, and secondarily, made necessary by the fear of the psyche itself." (1968, p. 197.)
To me, this means listening to the inner self, the unconscious, the spirit.
"This ability of healthier people to dip into the unconscious and preconscious, to use and value their primary processes instead of fearing them, to accept their impulses instead of always controlling them, to be able to regress voluntarily without fear, turns out to be one of the main conditions of creativity."
"This development toward the concept of a healthy unconscious and of a healthy irrationality, sharpens our awareness of the limitations of purely abstract thinking, of verbal thinking and of analytic thinking. If our hope is to describe the world fully, a place is necessary for preverbal, ineffable, metaphorical, primary process, concrete-experience, intuitive and esthetic types of cognition, for there are certain aspects of reality which can be cognized in no other way." (p. 208)
Meditation, self-hypnosis, imagery and the like are sources of discovering our inner being. To become self-actualized, Maslow said we need two things, inner exploration and action.
"An important existential problem is posed by the fact that self-actualizing persons (and all people in their peak- experiences) occasionally live out-of-time and out-of-the- world (atemporal and aspatial) even though mostly they must live in the outer world. Living in the inner psychic world (which is ruled by psychic laws and not by the laws of outer-reality), i.e., the world of experience, of emotion, of wishes and fears and hopes, of love of poetry, art and fantasy, is different from living in and adapting to the non-psychic reality which runs by laws he never made and which are not essential to his nature even though he has to live by them. (He could, after all, live in other kinds of worlds, as any science fiction fan knows.) The person who is not afraid of this inner, psychic world, can enjoy it to such an extent that it may be called Heaven by contrast with the more effortful, fatiguing, externally responsible world of "reality," of striving and coping, of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood. This is true even though the healthier person can also adapt more easily and enjoyably to the "real" world, and has better "reality testing," i.e., doesn't confuse it with his inner psychic world." (p. 213)
Maslow has made a case for natural, human goodness. Man is basically good, not evil, he has the capacity to be an efficient, healthy and happy person. But he must nurture the capacity with awareness, honesty, introspection and maintain his freedom: to freely respond to internal and external events (values), to be himself at all costs.
The knowledge that man has this capacity motivates him to realize it. It also obliges him to actively work toward self realization. We cannot not respond to the call that a value makes on us. This whole discussion shows the importance of studying Values and Ethics. We are obliged to discover the range of our possible moral behavior. If we are capable of being healthy and happy, then we are obliged to work toward that goal.
For more information please visit: (psikoloji.fisek.com.tr)
(Ref: psikoloji.fisek.com.tr)
"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."
Abraham Maslow
Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.
The characteristics listed here are the results of 20 years of study of people who had the "full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.."
Self-actualization implies the attainment of the basic needs of physiological, safety/security, love/belongingness, and self-esteem.
Maslow's Basic Principles:
1. The normal personality is characterized by unity, integration, consistency, and coherence. Organization is the natural state, and disorganization is pathological.
2. The organism can be analyzed by differentiating its parts, but no part can be studied in isolation. The whole functions according to laws that cannot be found in the parts.
3. The organism has one sovereign drive, that of self-actualization. People strive continuously to realize their inherent potential by whatever avenues are open to them.
4. The influence of the external environment on normal development is minimal. The organism's potential, if allowed to unfold by an appropriate environment, will produce a healthy, integrated personality.
5. The comprehensive study of one person is more useful than the extensive investigation, in many people, of an isolated psychological function.
6. The salvation of the human being is not to be found in either behaviorism or in psychoanalysis, (which deals with only the darker, meaner half of the individual). We must deal with the questions of value, individuality, consciousness, purpose, ethics and the higher reaches of human nature.
7. Man is basically good not evil.
8. Psychopathology generally results from the denial, frustration or twisting of our essential nature.
9. Therapy of any sort, is a means of restoring a person to the path of self-actualization and development along the lines dictated by their inner nature.
10. When the four basic needs have been satisfied, the growth need or self-actualization need arises: A new discontent and restlessness will develop unless the individual is doing what he individually is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write--in short, what people can be they must be.
Characteristics of Self Actualizing People
Realistic
Realistically oriented, SA persons have a more efficient perception of reality, they have comfortable relations with it. This is extended to all areas of life. SA persons are unthreatened, unfrightened by the unknown. they have a superior ability to reason, to see the truth. They are logical and efficient.
Acceptance
Accept themselves, others and the natural world the way they are. Sees human nature as is, have a lack of crippling guilt or shame, enjoy themselves without regret or apology, they have no unnecessary inhibitions.
Spontaneity, Simplicity, Naturalness
Spontaneous in their inner life, thoughts and impulses, they are unhampered by convention. Their ethics is autonomous, they are individuals, and are motivated to continual growth.
Problem Centering
Focus on problems outside themselves, other centered. They have a mission in life requiring much energy, their mission is their reason for existence. They are serene, characterized by a lack of worry, and are devoted to duty.
Detachment: The Need for Privacy
Alone but not lonely, unflappable, retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, objective. They are self starters, responsible for themselves, own their behavior.
Autonomy: Independent of Culture and Environment
SA's rely on inner self for satisfaction. Stable in the face of hard knocks, they are self contained, independent from love and respect.
Continued Freshness of Appreciation
Have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and things. Appreciation of the basic good in life, moment to moment living is thrilling, transcending and spiritual. They live the present moment to the fullest.
Peak experiences
"Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstacy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences." Abraham Maslow
Maslow asked his subjects to think of the most wonderful experience or experiences of their lives--the happiest moments, extatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in live, or from listening to music or suddenly "being hit" by a book or a painting or from some great creative moment. He found that people undergoing peak experiences felt more integrated, more at one with the world, more in command of their own lives, more spontaneous, less aware of space and time, more perceptive, more self determined, more playful.
Effects of peak experiences:
* The removal of neurotic symptoms
* A tendency to view oneself in a more healthy way
* Change in one's view of other people and of one's relations with them
* Change in one's view of the world
* The release of creativity, spontaneity and expressiveness
* A tendency to remember the experience and to try to duplicate it
* A tendency to view life in general as more worthwhile.
Gemeinschaftsgefuhl
Identification, sympathy, and affection for mankind, kinship with the good, the bad and the ugly, older-brother attitude. Truth is clear to him, can see things others cannot see.
Interpersonal relations
Profound, intimate relationships with few. Capable of greater love than others consider possible. Benevolence, affection and friendliness shown to everyone.
Democratic values and attitudes
Able to learn from anyone, humble. Friendly with anyone regardless of class, education, political belief, race or color.
Discrimination: means and ends, Good and Evil
Do not confuse between means and ends. They do no do wrong. Enjoy the here and now, getting to goal--not just the result. They make the most tedious task an enjoyable game. They have their own inner moral standards (appearing amoral to others).
Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
Jokes are teaching metaphors, intrinsic to the situation, spontaneous, can laugh at themselves, never make jokes that hurt others.
Creativity
Inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything they do, see the real and true more easily, original, inventive and less inhibited.
Resistance to enculturation: Transcendence of any particular culture
Inner detachment from culture, folkways are used but of no consequence, calm long term culture improvement, indignation with injustice, inner autonomy and outer acceptance. Transcend the environment rather than just cope.
Imperfections
Painfully aware of own imperfections, joyfully aware of own growth process. Impatient with self when stuck, real life pain, not imagined.
Values
Philosophical acceptance of the nature of his self, human nature, social life, nature, physical reality, remains realistically human.
Resolution of dichotomies
Polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon, as though the two have united, work becomes play, most childlike person is most wise, opposite forces no longer felt as a conflict. Desires are in excellent accord with reason.
Maslow says there are two processes necessary for self-actualization: self exploration and action. The deeper the self exploration, the closer one comes to self-actualization.
EIGHT WAYS TO SELF ACTUALIZE
1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.
2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don't like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses--and then finding the courage to give them up.
SELF ACTUALIZATION
Maslow (1954), believed that man has a natural drive to healthiness, or self actualization. He believed that man has basic, (biological and psychological) needs that have to be fulfilled in order to be free enough to feel the desire for the higher levels of realization. He also believed that the organism has the natural, unconscious and innate capacity to seek its needs. (Maslow 1968)
In other words, man has an internal, natural, drive to become the best possible person he can be.
"...he has within him a pressure toward unity of personality, toward spontaneous expressiveness, toward full individuality and identity, toward seeing the truth rather than being blind, toward being creative, toward being good, and a lot else. That is, the human being is so constructed that he presses toward what most people would call good values, toward serenity, kindness, courage, honesty, love, unselfishness, and goodness." (Maslow, 1968, p. 155.)
Maslow believed that not only does the organism know what it needs to eat to maintain itself healthy, but also man knows intuitively what he needs to become the best possible, mentally healthy and happy "being". I use the word "being" because Maslow goes far beyond what the average person considers good physical and mental health. He talked about higher consciousness, esthetic and peak experiences, and Being. He stressed the importance of moral and ethical behavior that will lead man naturally to discovering, becoming himself.
"The state of being without a system of values is psychopathogenic, we are learning. The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense he needs sunlight, calcium or love. This I have called the "cognitive need to understand." The value- illnesses which result from valuelessness are called variously anhedonia, anomie, apathy, amorality, hopelessness, cynicism, etc., and can become somatic illness as well. Historically, we are in a value interregnum in which all externally given value systems have proven failures (political, economic, religious, etc.) e.g., nothing is worth dying for. What man needs but doesn't have, he seeks for unceasingly, and he becomes dangerously ready to jump at any hope, good or bad. The cure for this disease is obvious. We need a validated, usable system of human values that we can believe in and devote ourselves to (be willing to die for), because they are true rather than because we are exhorted to "believe and have faith." Such an empirically based Weltanschauung seems now to be a real possibility, at least in theoretical outline." (Maslow, 1968, p. 206.)
Morality then is natural. If we use our capacity to think, are honest, sincere and open, we arrive at moral and ethical behavior naturally. The problem is to not destroy our ability to become ourselves.
"Pure spontaneity consists of free, uninhibited uncontrolled, trusting, unpremeditated expression of the self, i.e., of the psychic forces, with minimal interference by consciousness. Control, will, caution, self-criticism, measure, deliberateness are the brakes upon this expression made intrinsically necessary by the laws of the social and natural world, and secondarily, made necessary by the fear of the psyche itself." (1968, p. 197.)
To me, this means listening to the inner self, the unconscious, the spirit.
"This ability of healthier people to dip into the unconscious and preconscious, to use and value their primary processes instead of fearing them, to accept their impulses instead of always controlling them, to be able to regress voluntarily without fear, turns out to be one of the main conditions of creativity."
"This development toward the concept of a healthy unconscious and of a healthy irrationality, sharpens our awareness of the limitations of purely abstract thinking, of verbal thinking and of analytic thinking. If our hope is to describe the world fully, a place is necessary for preverbal, ineffable, metaphorical, primary process, concrete-experience, intuitive and esthetic types of cognition, for there are certain aspects of reality which can be cognized in no other way." (p. 208)
Meditation, self-hypnosis, imagery and the like are sources of discovering our inner being. To become self-actualized, Maslow said we need two things, inner exploration and action.
"An important existential problem is posed by the fact that self-actualizing persons (and all people in their peak- experiences) occasionally live out-of-time and out-of-the- world (atemporal and aspatial) even though mostly they must live in the outer world. Living in the inner psychic world (which is ruled by psychic laws and not by the laws of outer-reality), i.e., the world of experience, of emotion, of wishes and fears and hopes, of love of poetry, art and fantasy, is different from living in and adapting to the non-psychic reality which runs by laws he never made and which are not essential to his nature even though he has to live by them. (He could, after all, live in other kinds of worlds, as any science fiction fan knows.) The person who is not afraid of this inner, psychic world, can enjoy it to such an extent that it may be called Heaven by contrast with the more effortful, fatiguing, externally responsible world of "reality," of striving and coping, of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood. This is true even though the healthier person can also adapt more easily and enjoyably to the "real" world, and has better "reality testing," i.e., doesn't confuse it with his inner psychic world." (p. 213)
Maslow has made a case for natural, human goodness. Man is basically good, not evil, he has the capacity to be an efficient, healthy and happy person. But he must nurture the capacity with awareness, honesty, introspection and maintain his freedom: to freely respond to internal and external events (values), to be himself at all costs.
The knowledge that man has this capacity motivates him to realize it. It also obliges him to actively work toward self realization. We cannot not respond to the call that a value makes on us. This whole discussion shows the importance of studying Values and Ethics. We are obliged to discover the range of our possible moral behavior. If we are capable of being healthy and happy, then we are obliged to work toward that goal.
For more information please visit: (psikoloji.fisek.com.tr)
Conserving the Barn Owl and its Environment
The Barn Owl Trust is a small charity working very hard to conserve one of the most beautiful birds on earth. Anyone who has ever watched a Barn Owl hunting at dusk has surely been touched by the experience but sadly these magical birds have become increasingly rare - and the reasons are all man-made. Lack of food due to intensive farming, the loss of roost and nest sites, road mortality, and a host of other factors are to blame.
The Trust was founded by a small group of volunteers who believed not only that they could reverse this decline through practical conservation work, but also that they could use people's interest in the Barn Owl to increase environmental awareness. Thus the Trust's two-pronged approach and slogan "Conserving the Barn Owl and its Environment" was born.
The Barn Owl Trust officially "hatched" on the 30th July 1988 with the arrival of its registered charity number and a donation of £25 from one of its founding Trustees. That was all it had: a number, twenty-five pounds, and a few highly committed and very active volunteers!
Although compared to other charities the Barn Owl Trust is still very small it has an impressive track record and an excellent reputation. In the early days effort was concentrated on habitat creation and boosting the number of wild Barn Owls by releasing additional birds from captivity. The Trust soon began highly detailed countywide surveys that highlighted the ongoing loss of occupied sites. This prompted a major research project looking at the effects of barn conversion on local Barn Owl populations, that in turn led to positive changes in Local Authority planning policies. Other projects have led to close working relationships with a wide range of conservation organizations.
Despite having a small team of professional staff and being consulted by government, the Barn Owl Trust is still a grass-roots voluntary organisation that prides itself on the sheer amount of practical work it does. From erecting nesting boxes to creating ideal habitats, providing quality care for casualty owls to innovative research and thought provoking educational work to specialist training for professionals - the Barn Owl Trust leads the field.
For more information please visit http://barnowltrust.org.uk
Computer Programmer Humor
Read this....
Interviewer: "Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?"
Bill Gates: "No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great
programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to
the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished
out listings of their operating system."
DEBUGGING : Removing the needles from the haystack.
Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure
to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-Dijkstra
"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a
soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."
- _The Wizardry Compiled_ by Rick Cook
"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of
referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given
that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant.
This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
- FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
- Bjarne Stroustrup
"Programming graphics in X is like finding sqrt(pi) using Roman numerals."
- Henry Spencer
"Never put off until run time what you can do at compile time."
- David Gries, in "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers", circa 1969.
BASIC programmers never die, they GOSUB and don't RETURN.
Real programmers are surprised when the odometers in their cars don't turn from 99,999 to 99,99A.
FORTRAN is not a language. It's a way of turning a multi-million
dollar mainframe into a $50 programmable scientific calculator.
C is almost a real language. Even the name sounds like it's gone through
an optimizing compiler. Get rid of all of those stupid brackets and we'll talk.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
Programming is 10% science, 25% ingenuity and 65% getting the ingenuity to work with the science.
Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing.
We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers.
COBOL programmers understand why women hate periods.
Computer interfaces and user interfaces are as different as night and 1.
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten 10% of its
capacity, the rest is overhead for the operating system.
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.
The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually the programmer.
Programming is an art form that fights back.
After a number of decimal places, who cares?
"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.
If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer.
"It's 5:50 a.m., Do you know where your stack pointer is?"
If God had intended humans to program, we would be born with serial I/O ports.
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
You never finish a program, you just stop working on it.
Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear
no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together.
Programming is a lot like sex. One mistake and you could have to support it the rest of your life.
Another Glitch in the Call
(Sung to the tune of a Pink Floyd song)
-
We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?
-
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
-
Chorus:
All in all, it was, just a pure-LISP function call.
All in all, it was, just a pure-LISP function call.
You can't make a program without broken egos.
To enjoy more, please visit heuse.com
Interviewer: "Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?"
Bill Gates: "No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great
programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to
the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished
out listings of their operating system."
DEBUGGING : Removing the needles from the haystack.
Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure
to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-Dijkstra
"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a
soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."
- _The Wizardry Compiled_ by Rick Cook
"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of
referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given
that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant.
This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
- FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
- Bjarne Stroustrup
"Programming graphics in X is like finding sqrt(pi) using Roman numerals."
- Henry Spencer
"Never put off until run time what you can do at compile time."
- David Gries, in "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers", circa 1969.
BASIC programmers never die, they GOSUB and don't RETURN.
Real programmers are surprised when the odometers in their cars don't turn from 99,999 to 99,99A.
FORTRAN is not a language. It's a way of turning a multi-million
dollar mainframe into a $50 programmable scientific calculator.
C is almost a real language. Even the name sounds like it's gone through
an optimizing compiler. Get rid of all of those stupid brackets and we'll talk.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
Programming is 10% science, 25% ingenuity and 65% getting the ingenuity to work with the science.
Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing.
We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers.
COBOL programmers understand why women hate periods.
Computer interfaces and user interfaces are as different as night and 1.
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten 10% of its
capacity, the rest is overhead for the operating system.
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.
The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually the programmer.
Programming is an art form that fights back.
After a number of decimal places, who cares?
"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.
If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer.
"It's 5:50 a.m., Do you know where your stack pointer is?"
If God had intended humans to program, we would be born with serial I/O ports.
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
You never finish a program, you just stop working on it.
Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear
no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together.
Programming is a lot like sex. One mistake and you could have to support it the rest of your life.
Another Glitch in the Call
(Sung to the tune of a Pink Floyd song)
-
We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?
-
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
-
Chorus:
All in all, it was, just a pure-LISP function call.
All in all, it was, just a pure-LISP function call.
You can't make a program without broken egos.
To enjoy more, please visit heuse.com
Indian Temples
Want to know about India temples?
Please visit TempleNet for nice information on temples in all over India.
Build a Better DVR out of an Old PC
Free TiVo: Build a Better DVR out of an Old PC
by Ken Sharp
www.provedorcrescenet.com
April 25, 2005
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) have become a necessary luxury over the last several years. Millions of people rely on these devices to pause and rewind live television, and to keep track of broadcast schedules and record programs for them. Many consider them just as essential to their daily lives as their cell phones.
Several months ago, I finally became sufficiently jealous of the millions of DVR owners to motivate me to put a DVR in my own living room. But I wanted something more versatile than a normal TiVo, ReplayTV, or Ultimate TV system. I envisioned an all-purpose media server that would function as a full DVR, but would also work as a music server and play console games. It would have an easy remote-control interface, just like a commercial DVR, and a way to program it through the internet. Finally, I wanted to avoid the monthly fees that many DVR owners pay to keep their machines' schedules up-to-date.
I earn a living as a computer engineer, so I understand how long it can take to write custom software. So, in order to build my dream machine as quickly and easily as possible, I wanted to use only off-the-shelf software and components. I knew this was all possible, and after a month of research and a few late nights of construction, I had my custom DVR box. It works just as I'd hoped and does even more. For instance, it streams music over the internet, so I can listen to my music collection from work (or anywhere else).
Beauty shot of DVR PC
The final installation of my DVR PC: Note the PC on the left, which is concealable behind a cabinet door, the Playstation controllers on the top shelf, and the keyboard, which is barely visible under the cabinet.
Here's how I did it.
SET UP:
You'll need:
* Windows machine with at least 256MB of RAM (512MB is better), plenty of hard drive space, and a good video card.
* TV and receiver presumably from your existing home theater system).
* TV card I used a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card, $149 at hauppauge.com.
* PC DVR software I used BeyondTV, which was bundled with the Hauppauge card, but is available from SnapStream separately for $70 at snapstream.com.
* WinDVD I already had an old copy of this from my video card, but it's $50 from intervideo.com.
* Winamp The standard Windows MP3 player, free at winamp.com.
* VNC Remote PC access software, free at realvnc.com
* SlimServer Lets your server stream music remotely through the internet, free at slimdevices.com.
* Various game emulators Run console game ROMs, many free ones listed at zophar.net.
* Playstation or Nintendo game controllers These work much better than PC gamepads for the price, and are available lots of places for $15 and up.
* PSX/N64 to USB converter Lets you use console gamepads on the PC, $13 each at lik-sang.com.
* Girder Automation software, $20 at promixis.com
* Cygwin and server software Linux-like operating system, free at cygwin.com.
* Dynamic DNS service Lets you connect to your home server using a fixed domain name if your broadband account allocates your IP address dynamically. I got this from dyndns.org.
MAKE IT:
The basic sequence of steps is:
1. Build the PC
2. Install the TV and receiver
3. Install the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card and BeyondTV
4. Install video, music, and game utilities
5. Install PSX/N64 to USB converters
6. Install and configure Girder
7. Install Cygwin and server software
8. Set up firewall and dynamic DNS service
1. Build the PC
I started with an old PC (a Dell Dimension 4500) that had unfortunately been destroyed by lightning. After some experimentation, I figured out that the only bad portions of the PC were the motherboard and the modem (which I didn't need anyway). I decided to replace the motherboard and keep the same case and other hardware because I really liked Dell's clamshell case design. I did some research at my local Fry's electronics store and got a motherboard that would allow me to use the same memory, processor, and case. After getting the PC back up and running with this hardware, I had a pretty decent machine with a 1.8 GHz P4 processor, 256MB DDR2100 RAM, and a 20GB HD. Not bad for a resurrected PC.
I then formatted the hard drive and put Windows 2000 on as the OS. I did this mostly because I had an extra license for Win2K lying around that I wasn't using. I may eventually upgrade to XP, but right now, everything is working well with 2000.
After I had the machine up and running, I decided to add some extra hardware. I added 512MB of RAM, since this would be a server machine and could probably use a little extra RAM. I also added a lot of hard drive space and ended up buying two 120GB hard drives. I figured that I would need quite a bit of space for use with the DVR software, and I would also need quite a bit of space to act as a general file server (for MP3s, movie files, etc.). So I assigned one of the 120GB drives for DVR duty and the other for general file storage. This ended up giving me plenty of room for file storage and about 50 hours of good quality video with the DVR software.
Any modern Windows PC can be used for DVR duty. When choosing an appropriate PC, keep several key features in mind: 1) make sure to have enough memory. If you want to run several applications (for instance, watching a DVD while recording a TV show), then you will want more RAM. You can probably get by with 256MB of RAM, but 512MB of RAM is better. 2) You'll want plenty of hard drive space for your DVR to record TV shows. The more hard drive space, the better. 3) Make sure your power supply is rated high enough to allow you to power the devices in your system. If you add multiple hard drives, a DVD drive, and a hefty 3D graphics video card, then you'll probably want to have a 350 - 400W power supply in your PC.
2. Install the TV and Receiver
Next I needed to hook up the PC to a TV and a receiver. Luckily, I already had a 32-inch TV and a receiver. I also had a working Gainward GeForce3 video card, inherited from the old lightning-struck PC. The card had an S-Video out, and it came with an S-Video to RCA conversion cable, which I used to connect it to the RCA input of the TV. This way, to switch to the the PC, I just hit the TV/Video button on the remote, like I'd do with a Playstation or DVD player. Then I connected the line-out from the PC's sound card to one of the receiver's inputs. I checked out both the video and sound quality by playing a DVD on the PC, and it looked pretty good.
3. Install Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 Card and BeyondTV
Next, I wanted to get the DVR functionality up and running. I wanted to create a TiVo-like experience, so I researched what PC DVR software was available. After a bit of searching, I narrowed the prospects down to BeyondTV and SageTV. After toying with the trial versions of each of these, I decided I liked BeyondTV better. There weren't any good technical reasons for this, as they both seem like excellent products, but I just liked the look and feel of BeyondTV a little better. One of the advantages of BeyondTV is that it has a free program guide service to keep your TV listings up to date. It also has a free service through snapstream.net which allows you to remotely set a show to record via the internet. This is really nice if you've gone on vacation or on a business trip and you suddenly see something that you want to record.
Snapstream, the makers of BeyondTV, offer some very well-priced bundles that include a TV card and a copy of BeyondTV. I did a little more research and found that I couldn't get both the TV card and BeyondTV software any cheaper elsewhere. I ended up getting BeyondTV bundled with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 TV card. This card is pretty cool because it includes an IR remote, which is natively compatible with Beyond TV. It also has a hardware MPEG encoder, which offloads demand on the CPU when recording MPEG files. I thought this was important since I knew that the PC would have other things running (HTTP server, WinDVD, etc.) while it was recording shows.
Installation of the TV card and BeyondTV was pretty simple. I won't put a detailed blow-by-blow of it here, because I just followed the included instructions and that worked fine.
One thing to note with the most recent version of BeyondTV is that it can now record TV from multiple tuner cards. This means you can simultaneously record multiple shows on different TV channels.
Menu with items: Recorded Shows / Live TV / Program Guide / Set Up Recordings / Settings / Exit
Main menu of BeyondTV
4. Install Video, Music, and Game Utilities
At this point, I needed to install the rest of the software I would need:
* WinDVD (www.intervideo.com): I had a copy of WinDVD 3 that came with the aforementioned Gainward GeForce3 card. This is a pretty old version of WinDVD, but it plays DVDs, VCDs, and SVCDs perfectly, so I didn't see the need to shell out any more cash for a new version.
* Winamp (www.winamp.com): This de facto standard MP3 player is simple and works great. Why change what works? I did increase the font size and the front panel dimensions to look better on the TV screen, though.
* VNC (www.realvnc.com): I don't know if you've ever seen a PC's output on a TV, but it pretty much sucks. TVs just can't handle a resolution that high. BeyondTV and WinDVD are made to look good on lower resolutions, but regular Windows programs are a bit hard to read. VNC is a free program that can be used very similarly to the Remote Desktop feature in Windows XP (basically, it allows a graphical remote desktop view). I use VNC on the PC so that I can login and manipulate the desktop from my laptop at full PC resolution, rather than having to do it from the TV screen.
* SlimServer (www.slimdevices.com): This is a free, open source program that allows you to remotely stream your MP3 collection through the internet. The beauty of it is that you only need an internet connection, a web browser, and a media player on the client side (Winamp and Windows Media Player both work fine) in order to listen to your entire MP3 collection from anywhere in the world. I use this to listen to my music collection at work, so I don't have to lug around a stack of burned CDs. This is one of the coolest free programs I've seen.
SlimServer/Squeezebox application main window
Web interface of SlimServer. You choose songs from the left frame, and the player interface is shown on the right.
* Various game emulators: At this point, I also installed a slew of emulators. Emulators allow you to play games from various consoles and arcade machines. All you need is the appropriate emulator for a given system and ROM files, which are binary dumps of game cartridges. Some of my favorite emulators are ZSNES (Super Nintendo), Visualboy Advance (Nintendo Gameboy Advance), 1964 (Nintendo 64), and MAME (Multiple Arcade Games). There are many other emulators available; the best place to find them is www.zophar.net. If you don't already know where to get game ROMs, you should do some searching on the internet for sources of ROMs. Note that it is illegal to have a ROM for a game unless you own the original game cartridge.
5. Install PSX/N64 to USB Converters
In order to play emulators well, you usually need a good gamepad. For some reason, most of the gamepads for PC aren't very good, and if a PC gamepad is good, then it's usually really expensive. So a while back, I found a cool product that converts a PlayStation or Nintendo 64 controller to a USB interface. This allows a PC to see it as a regular PC gamepad. I bought two of these from www.lik-sang.com, and they work really well. I took two slightly used PlayStation controllers, plugged them in, and now I can use the controllers in any emulator which supports Windows gamepads (which is nearly all of them). This really enhances the gameplay experience, and the USB converters aren't that expensive.
These converters are also easy to install. Just plug them in, and Windows will automatically recognize them as Human Interface Devices.
Game controller to USB converter dongle
The Playstation/N64 controller to USB converter (shown with a Playstation controller plugged in).
6. Install and Configure Girder
Girder is a very handy program that allows you to automate Windows. Basically, it acts as the "glue" between different programs. In my case, it acts as the glue between pressing buttons on my Hauppauge IR remote and taking actions in WinDVD and in all of the other programs on my system. This completes the home-theater-style experience. For example, Girder lets me set up commands so that pressing a button on the remote simulates pressing the "Play" button in WinDVD.
Girder also has a flexible plug-in architecture that lets third-party developers create plugins to enhance Girder's capabilities. Girder doesn't natively support my Hauppauge IR remote, so I installed a plug-in that allows Girder to receive button events from the remote.
One important thing I discovered is that it is a good idea to disable the standard IR remote application that installs by default with the Hauppauge TV card drivers, because this application makes the Girder plug-in respond less quickly. You can disable this application by going to the Startup folder in the Windows Start menu and deleting the "Autostart IR" shortcut.
I installed another plug-in for Girder called OSD Menu, which allows me to easily create my own On Screen Menus. Using this, I created a custom menu that allows me to open and close all of my players and game emulators. This menu corresponds to a Girder configuration file (GML) I created, which talks to all of the programs: WinDVD, BeyondTV, Winamp, 1964 (Nintendo 64 emulator), Snes9x (Super Nintendo/SNES emulator), FCE Ultra (NES emulator), Visualboy Advance (Gameboy and Gameboy Advance emaultor), Kega Fusion (Sega Genesis, Master System, and Game Gear emulator) and MAME (multiple arcade machine emulator). This way, I can launch, play, and close everything from my Hauppauge remote. Note that the best SNES emulator is ZSNES, but it uses a very nonstandard Windows interface which Girder has trouble connecting to. As a result, I use the Snes9x emulator instead, which is almost as good.
I'm going to leave out the part where I explain how I set up all of the functions for these different programs, because it's essentially the same process anyone would have to go through to automate a program with Girder (and because it would take me forever to type it all out). Check out the GML file to see how I did it, if you're interested. I created separate GML files for all of the different programs and then imported them into a top-level GML file, which implements a nice OSD menu and enables or disables the different programs' commands based on which program you're currently running. I've included the individual GML files (named appropriately for each program) and the top-level GML file (named toplevel.gml; clever name, eh?). And if you still want more info, check out Girder's homepage at www.promixis.com; they have an excellent user forum where you can get pretty much any question answered by true Girder gurus.
Menu with items: Open/Close WinDVD / Open/Close BeyondTV / Open/Close Winamp etc., with Exit at bottom
The OSD menu I designed through Girder to allow me to open and close my DVR PC's applications.
7. Install Cygwin and Server Software
To finish up my TV PC, I wanted to add in the functionality of an HTTP server, FTP server, and an SSH server. I chose to do this in Cygwin, which is an environment for Windows that simulates the *NIX operating system interface. Many of the free software packages that are available for Linux are also available in Cygwin versions. I chose to use Cygwin for much of my server software because I like the Linux command-line interface, it's free, and I wasn't able to locate a SSH server available for Windows. Another side effect of using Cygwin is that I can install many of my favorite development tools, such as GCC, Perl, Flex, bison, and Python, and have those tools available if I need them for another project.
I chose to use the Apache webserver (httpd), ProFTP (proftpd), and OpenSSH (sshd) for my server installations. All of this software is available for download via Cygwin's standard installer (I didn't have to build any of them from source code). To set up these three programs, I used the instructions which install to the /usr/share/doc/Cygwin directory. The documents in this directory show you how to install these three programs as Windows services (they need to be services to run properly in Windows).
The only addition I had to make to these instructions was with HTTPd. To get this service to start without error, I had to go into the Windows service manager and set the service to logon as Administrator (instead of the default Local System). This can be done by right-clicking on My Computer and choosing Manage. From here, go to Services and Applications -> Services, and right-click and choose Properties on the "CYGWIN httpd (apache)" service. In the dialog that comes up, change the Log On from Local System account to the computer's Administrator account. Now the HTTPd service should start up correctly.
I also changed some of the default configuration for ProFTPd. The first thing I did was to remove Anonymous user access. Usually the authorized users for an FTP server are the same as the authorized users for the computer. But I didn't want everyone to have access to the entire system, so I used a configuration directive called AuthUserFile to set a passwd file for the FTP server only. I used a Perl script called ftpasswd to create this alternate passwd file and add users to it (the script is available at www.castaglia.org). I also set up a feature called a root jail that allows you to restrict user access to a subset of the PC's hard drive(s). Next up, I set permissions on my directories such that FTP users could only write to their home directories and to an incoming folder. Note that the entire ProFTP configuration is controlled by editing the /etc/proftpd.conf file. For more info on modifying the proftpd.conf file, refer to the documentation at www.proftpd.org.
8. Set up Firewall and Dynamic DNS Service
For remote access, I needed to configure the firewall on my D-Link router to allow connections to the FTP, HTTP, SlimServer, and SSH servers. After these ports were open, I added port forwarding, so that requests coming over these ports would be forwarded my TV PC.
Finally, I wanted to make it easier to access my servers from the outside world. As with many broadband users, I am at the mercy of my ISP's DHCP server. What this means is that the IP address of my network is dynamically assigned by my ISP and can change at any moment (in reality, it usually only changes every couple of months). I also have no DNS access, so I have to remember an easily-forgotten 12-digit number to get to my computer.
I found a free solution to this problem by using a Dynamic DNS service. Basically, a service like this allows you to configure a Domain Name for your IP address, so instead of typing "192.168.42.13" you can type something like "ken.isageek.org". These types of accounts also allow you to automatically update your IP address by using a small utility which checks your IP at set time intervals and updates your account automatically if anything changes. I chose to use www.dyndns.org for my service provider and a small utility called DirectUpdate, which runs on my TV PC to automatically update my IP address if it changes.
USE IT:
This project came together very well, and I now have a DVR PC that far exceeded my original expectations. The real beauty of this project is its versatility. If you have some additional programs or features you'd like to add, it's very simple to install the software and integrate it into the system using Girder.
For more information... please visit http://www.makezine.com/extras/4.html.
by Ken Sharp
www.provedorcrescenet.com
April 25, 2005
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) have become a necessary luxury over the last several years. Millions of people rely on these devices to pause and rewind live television, and to keep track of broadcast schedules and record programs for them. Many consider them just as essential to their daily lives as their cell phones.
Several months ago, I finally became sufficiently jealous of the millions of DVR owners to motivate me to put a DVR in my own living room. But I wanted something more versatile than a normal TiVo, ReplayTV, or Ultimate TV system. I envisioned an all-purpose media server that would function as a full DVR, but would also work as a music server and play console games. It would have an easy remote-control interface, just like a commercial DVR, and a way to program it through the internet. Finally, I wanted to avoid the monthly fees that many DVR owners pay to keep their machines' schedules up-to-date.
I earn a living as a computer engineer, so I understand how long it can take to write custom software. So, in order to build my dream machine as quickly and easily as possible, I wanted to use only off-the-shelf software and components. I knew this was all possible, and after a month of research and a few late nights of construction, I had my custom DVR box. It works just as I'd hoped and does even more. For instance, it streams music over the internet, so I can listen to my music collection from work (or anywhere else).
Beauty shot of DVR PC
The final installation of my DVR PC: Note the PC on the left, which is concealable behind a cabinet door, the Playstation controllers on the top shelf, and the keyboard, which is barely visible under the cabinet.
Here's how I did it.
SET UP:
You'll need:
* Windows machine with at least 256MB of RAM (512MB is better), plenty of hard drive space, and a good video card.
* TV and receiver presumably from your existing home theater system).
* TV card I used a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card, $149 at hauppauge.com.
* PC DVR software I used BeyondTV, which was bundled with the Hauppauge card, but is available from SnapStream separately for $70 at snapstream.com.
* WinDVD I already had an old copy of this from my video card, but it's $50 from intervideo.com.
* Winamp The standard Windows MP3 player, free at winamp.com.
* VNC Remote PC access software, free at realvnc.com
* SlimServer Lets your server stream music remotely through the internet, free at slimdevices.com.
* Various game emulators Run console game ROMs, many free ones listed at zophar.net.
* Playstation or Nintendo game controllers These work much better than PC gamepads for the price, and are available lots of places for $15 and up.
* PSX/N64 to USB converter Lets you use console gamepads on the PC, $13 each at lik-sang.com.
* Girder Automation software, $20 at promixis.com
* Cygwin and server software Linux-like operating system, free at cygwin.com.
* Dynamic DNS service Lets you connect to your home server using a fixed domain name if your broadband account allocates your IP address dynamically. I got this from dyndns.org.
MAKE IT:
The basic sequence of steps is:
1. Build the PC
2. Install the TV and receiver
3. Install the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card and BeyondTV
4. Install video, music, and game utilities
5. Install PSX/N64 to USB converters
6. Install and configure Girder
7. Install Cygwin and server software
8. Set up firewall and dynamic DNS service
1. Build the PC
I started with an old PC (a Dell Dimension 4500) that had unfortunately been destroyed by lightning. After some experimentation, I figured out that the only bad portions of the PC were the motherboard and the modem (which I didn't need anyway). I decided to replace the motherboard and keep the same case and other hardware because I really liked Dell's clamshell case design. I did some research at my local Fry's electronics store and got a motherboard that would allow me to use the same memory, processor, and case. After getting the PC back up and running with this hardware, I had a pretty decent machine with a 1.8 GHz P4 processor, 256MB DDR2100 RAM, and a 20GB HD. Not bad for a resurrected PC.
I then formatted the hard drive and put Windows 2000 on as the OS. I did this mostly because I had an extra license for Win2K lying around that I wasn't using. I may eventually upgrade to XP, but right now, everything is working well with 2000.
After I had the machine up and running, I decided to add some extra hardware. I added 512MB of RAM, since this would be a server machine and could probably use a little extra RAM. I also added a lot of hard drive space and ended up buying two 120GB hard drives. I figured that I would need quite a bit of space for use with the DVR software, and I would also need quite a bit of space to act as a general file server (for MP3s, movie files, etc.). So I assigned one of the 120GB drives for DVR duty and the other for general file storage. This ended up giving me plenty of room for file storage and about 50 hours of good quality video with the DVR software.
Any modern Windows PC can be used for DVR duty. When choosing an appropriate PC, keep several key features in mind: 1) make sure to have enough memory. If you want to run several applications (for instance, watching a DVD while recording a TV show), then you will want more RAM. You can probably get by with 256MB of RAM, but 512MB of RAM is better. 2) You'll want plenty of hard drive space for your DVR to record TV shows. The more hard drive space, the better. 3) Make sure your power supply is rated high enough to allow you to power the devices in your system. If you add multiple hard drives, a DVD drive, and a hefty 3D graphics video card, then you'll probably want to have a 350 - 400W power supply in your PC.
2. Install the TV and Receiver
Next I needed to hook up the PC to a TV and a receiver. Luckily, I already had a 32-inch TV and a receiver. I also had a working Gainward GeForce3 video card, inherited from the old lightning-struck PC. The card had an S-Video out, and it came with an S-Video to RCA conversion cable, which I used to connect it to the RCA input of the TV. This way, to switch to the the PC, I just hit the TV/Video button on the remote, like I'd do with a Playstation or DVD player. Then I connected the line-out from the PC's sound card to one of the receiver's inputs. I checked out both the video and sound quality by playing a DVD on the PC, and it looked pretty good.
3. Install Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 Card and BeyondTV
Next, I wanted to get the DVR functionality up and running. I wanted to create a TiVo-like experience, so I researched what PC DVR software was available. After a bit of searching, I narrowed the prospects down to BeyondTV and SageTV. After toying with the trial versions of each of these, I decided I liked BeyondTV better. There weren't any good technical reasons for this, as they both seem like excellent products, but I just liked the look and feel of BeyondTV a little better. One of the advantages of BeyondTV is that it has a free program guide service to keep your TV listings up to date. It also has a free service through snapstream.net which allows you to remotely set a show to record via the internet. This is really nice if you've gone on vacation or on a business trip and you suddenly see something that you want to record.
Snapstream, the makers of BeyondTV, offer some very well-priced bundles that include a TV card and a copy of BeyondTV. I did a little more research and found that I couldn't get both the TV card and BeyondTV software any cheaper elsewhere. I ended up getting BeyondTV bundled with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 TV card. This card is pretty cool because it includes an IR remote, which is natively compatible with Beyond TV. It also has a hardware MPEG encoder, which offloads demand on the CPU when recording MPEG files. I thought this was important since I knew that the PC would have other things running (HTTP server, WinDVD, etc.) while it was recording shows.
Installation of the TV card and BeyondTV was pretty simple. I won't put a detailed blow-by-blow of it here, because I just followed the included instructions and that worked fine.
One thing to note with the most recent version of BeyondTV is that it can now record TV from multiple tuner cards. This means you can simultaneously record multiple shows on different TV channels.
Menu with items: Recorded Shows / Live TV / Program Guide / Set Up Recordings / Settings / Exit
Main menu of BeyondTV
4. Install Video, Music, and Game Utilities
At this point, I needed to install the rest of the software I would need:
* WinDVD (www.intervideo.com): I had a copy of WinDVD 3 that came with the aforementioned Gainward GeForce3 card. This is a pretty old version of WinDVD, but it plays DVDs, VCDs, and SVCDs perfectly, so I didn't see the need to shell out any more cash for a new version.
* Winamp (www.winamp.com): This de facto standard MP3 player is simple and works great. Why change what works? I did increase the font size and the front panel dimensions to look better on the TV screen, though.
* VNC (www.realvnc.com): I don't know if you've ever seen a PC's output on a TV, but it pretty much sucks. TVs just can't handle a resolution that high. BeyondTV and WinDVD are made to look good on lower resolutions, but regular Windows programs are a bit hard to read. VNC is a free program that can be used very similarly to the Remote Desktop feature in Windows XP (basically, it allows a graphical remote desktop view). I use VNC on the PC so that I can login and manipulate the desktop from my laptop at full PC resolution, rather than having to do it from the TV screen.
* SlimServer (www.slimdevices.com): This is a free, open source program that allows you to remotely stream your MP3 collection through the internet. The beauty of it is that you only need an internet connection, a web browser, and a media player on the client side (Winamp and Windows Media Player both work fine) in order to listen to your entire MP3 collection from anywhere in the world. I use this to listen to my music collection at work, so I don't have to lug around a stack of burned CDs. This is one of the coolest free programs I've seen.
SlimServer/Squeezebox application main window
Web interface of SlimServer. You choose songs from the left frame, and the player interface is shown on the right.
* Various game emulators: At this point, I also installed a slew of emulators. Emulators allow you to play games from various consoles and arcade machines. All you need is the appropriate emulator for a given system and ROM files, which are binary dumps of game cartridges. Some of my favorite emulators are ZSNES (Super Nintendo), Visualboy Advance (Nintendo Gameboy Advance), 1964 (Nintendo 64), and MAME (Multiple Arcade Games). There are many other emulators available; the best place to find them is www.zophar.net. If you don't already know where to get game ROMs, you should do some searching on the internet for sources of ROMs. Note that it is illegal to have a ROM for a game unless you own the original game cartridge.
5. Install PSX/N64 to USB Converters
In order to play emulators well, you usually need a good gamepad. For some reason, most of the gamepads for PC aren't very good, and if a PC gamepad is good, then it's usually really expensive. So a while back, I found a cool product that converts a PlayStation or Nintendo 64 controller to a USB interface. This allows a PC to see it as a regular PC gamepad. I bought two of these from www.lik-sang.com, and they work really well. I took two slightly used PlayStation controllers, plugged them in, and now I can use the controllers in any emulator which supports Windows gamepads (which is nearly all of them). This really enhances the gameplay experience, and the USB converters aren't that expensive.
These converters are also easy to install. Just plug them in, and Windows will automatically recognize them as Human Interface Devices.
Game controller to USB converter dongle
The Playstation/N64 controller to USB converter (shown with a Playstation controller plugged in).
6. Install and Configure Girder
Girder is a very handy program that allows you to automate Windows. Basically, it acts as the "glue" between different programs. In my case, it acts as the glue between pressing buttons on my Hauppauge IR remote and taking actions in WinDVD and in all of the other programs on my system. This completes the home-theater-style experience. For example, Girder lets me set up commands so that pressing a button on the remote simulates pressing the "Play" button in WinDVD.
Girder also has a flexible plug-in architecture that lets third-party developers create plugins to enhance Girder's capabilities. Girder doesn't natively support my Hauppauge IR remote, so I installed a plug-in that allows Girder to receive button events from the remote.
One important thing I discovered is that it is a good idea to disable the standard IR remote application that installs by default with the Hauppauge TV card drivers, because this application makes the Girder plug-in respond less quickly. You can disable this application by going to the Startup folder in the Windows Start menu and deleting the "Autostart IR" shortcut.
I installed another plug-in for Girder called OSD Menu, which allows me to easily create my own On Screen Menus. Using this, I created a custom menu that allows me to open and close all of my players and game emulators. This menu corresponds to a Girder configuration file (GML) I created, which talks to all of the programs: WinDVD, BeyondTV, Winamp, 1964 (Nintendo 64 emulator), Snes9x (Super Nintendo/SNES emulator), FCE Ultra (NES emulator), Visualboy Advance (Gameboy and Gameboy Advance emaultor), Kega Fusion (Sega Genesis, Master System, and Game Gear emulator) and MAME (multiple arcade machine emulator). This way, I can launch, play, and close everything from my Hauppauge remote. Note that the best SNES emulator is ZSNES, but it uses a very nonstandard Windows interface which Girder has trouble connecting to. As a result, I use the Snes9x emulator instead, which is almost as good.
I'm going to leave out the part where I explain how I set up all of the functions for these different programs, because it's essentially the same process anyone would have to go through to automate a program with Girder (and because it would take me forever to type it all out). Check out the GML file to see how I did it, if you're interested. I created separate GML files for all of the different programs and then imported them into a top-level GML file, which implements a nice OSD menu and enables or disables the different programs' commands based on which program you're currently running. I've included the individual GML files (named appropriately for each program) and the top-level GML file (named toplevel.gml; clever name, eh?). And if you still want more info, check out Girder's homepage at www.promixis.com; they have an excellent user forum where you can get pretty much any question answered by true Girder gurus.
Menu with items: Open/Close WinDVD / Open/Close BeyondTV / Open/Close Winamp etc., with Exit at bottom
The OSD menu I designed through Girder to allow me to open and close my DVR PC's applications.
7. Install Cygwin and Server Software
To finish up my TV PC, I wanted to add in the functionality of an HTTP server, FTP server, and an SSH server. I chose to do this in Cygwin, which is an environment for Windows that simulates the *NIX operating system interface. Many of the free software packages that are available for Linux are also available in Cygwin versions. I chose to use Cygwin for much of my server software because I like the Linux command-line interface, it's free, and I wasn't able to locate a SSH server available for Windows. Another side effect of using Cygwin is that I can install many of my favorite development tools, such as GCC, Perl, Flex, bison, and Python, and have those tools available if I need them for another project.
I chose to use the Apache webserver (httpd), ProFTP (proftpd), and OpenSSH (sshd) for my server installations. All of this software is available for download via Cygwin's standard installer (I didn't have to build any of them from source code). To set up these three programs, I used the instructions which install to the /usr/share/doc/Cygwin directory. The documents in this directory show you how to install these three programs as Windows services (they need to be services to run properly in Windows).
The only addition I had to make to these instructions was with HTTPd. To get this service to start without error, I had to go into the Windows service manager and set the service to logon as Administrator (instead of the default Local System). This can be done by right-clicking on My Computer and choosing Manage. From here, go to Services and Applications -> Services, and right-click and choose Properties on the "CYGWIN httpd (apache)" service. In the dialog that comes up, change the Log On from Local System account to the computer's Administrator account. Now the HTTPd service should start up correctly.
I also changed some of the default configuration for ProFTPd. The first thing I did was to remove Anonymous user access. Usually the authorized users for an FTP server are the same as the authorized users for the computer. But I didn't want everyone to have access to the entire system, so I used a configuration directive called AuthUserFile to set a passwd file for the FTP server only. I used a Perl script called ftpasswd to create this alternate passwd file and add users to it (the script is available at www.castaglia.org). I also set up a feature called a root jail that allows you to restrict user access to a subset of the PC's hard drive(s). Next up, I set permissions on my directories such that FTP users could only write to their home directories and to an incoming folder. Note that the entire ProFTP configuration is controlled by editing the /etc/proftpd.conf file. For more info on modifying the proftpd.conf file, refer to the documentation at www.proftpd.org.
8. Set up Firewall and Dynamic DNS Service
For remote access, I needed to configure the firewall on my D-Link router to allow connections to the FTP, HTTP, SlimServer, and SSH servers. After these ports were open, I added port forwarding, so that requests coming over these ports would be forwarded my TV PC.
Finally, I wanted to make it easier to access my servers from the outside world. As with many broadband users, I am at the mercy of my ISP's DHCP server. What this means is that the IP address of my network is dynamically assigned by my ISP and can change at any moment (in reality, it usually only changes every couple of months). I also have no DNS access, so I have to remember an easily-forgotten 12-digit number to get to my computer.
I found a free solution to this problem by using a Dynamic DNS service. Basically, a service like this allows you to configure a Domain Name for your IP address, so instead of typing "192.168.42.13" you can type something like "ken.isageek.org". These types of accounts also allow you to automatically update your IP address by using a small utility which checks your IP at set time intervals and updates your account automatically if anything changes. I chose to use www.dyndns.org for my service provider and a small utility called DirectUpdate, which runs on my TV PC to automatically update my IP address if it changes.
USE IT:
This project came together very well, and I now have a DVR PC that far exceeded my original expectations. The real beauty of this project is its versatility. If you have some additional programs or features you'd like to add, it's very simple to install the software and integrate it into the system using Girder.
For more information... please visit http://www.makezine.com/extras/4.html.
How to run your car on chip oil
How to run your car on chip oil
By Karen Pirie
You and Yours, BBC Radio 4
Vegetable oil being filtered
Thousands of people in the UK are now making their own biofuel
As oil price and duty rises threaten to push diesel prices beyond the £1-a-litre mark, more of us are finding inventive ways to save money on our transport costs.
Since the law changed in July, it is now legal to make up to 2,500 litres of your own biodiesel, enough to run the average family car, without having to pay tax.
"Home brewers" convert chip fat from pubs and restaurants, which would otherwise go straight to landfill. Companies who make the kits needed to convert this unwanted oil are reporting a steady rise in sales.
Thousands of enthusiasts are also expected to attend a biofuels trade fare in Nottinghamshire on 17 and 18 October.
Home brew
Dan Purkis, a consultant engineer, puts home-brewed fuel into the tanks of his 4x4, even though he is based in Aberdeen - the oil capital of the UK.
Dan Purkis
Hear Dan Purkis & biofuel experts on You and Yours
He admits that messing about with old chip fat is not for everyone but adds: "It's interesting and fun and it reduces my impact on the environment?
"When I looked at my lifestyle I realised that fuel was the greatest energy user in my life."
You can buy conversion kits from £700 but Mr Purkis has made his own.
He told the BBC's You and Yours programme: "No special tools were required and nothing was beyond the ability of a typical DIY enthusiast. Most of the parts were bought second hand or salvaged from scrap yards.
"I recycle used vegetable oil from a local hotel. They throw away between 50 and 100 litres a week which would otherwise go to landfill."
Once he gets it home, he puts the oil through a series of refinements:
* Allows sediment in the oil to settle to the bottom of the bottle
* Pumps and filters the top 70% of the oil; it is pure enough to put straight into his car
* Treats the remaining sludge and converts it into biodiesel by adding methanol and caustic soda
* Heats the oil, causing it to react with the caustic soda
The waste product from this process is glycerin, which has to be washed out of the biodiesel with soap and half-water to half-fuel. He then composts the glycerin.
Mr Purkis says his car runs better on biodiesel: "It's smoother - better lubricated."
Even though he is a qualified engineer, he insists that it is not a difficult process.
"If you can follow a recipe, you can make biodiesel," he explains. "There's lots of information out there on websites and forums and in books."
Fuel pump (Image: BBC)
Rising pump prices make home-made fuels more appealing
Motoring agencies, however, suggest a more cautious approach.
Vanessa Guyll of the AA says using clean vegetable oil is possible in cars with older pumps. But she adds: "Because it's thicker it can affect the injector.
"Some diesel pumps are more vulnerable than others, and if your pump goes it could cost up to £1,200 to replace it."
Mr Purkis reckons you can get round this by modifying your vehicle to warm the oil up which makes it less viscous.
He says you can adapt your car so that the fuel pipe is near the car's heater: "You can do this yourself if you know a bit about cars or you can buy a conversion kit."
But the AA has another word of caution.
"Using a small amount mixed with regular fuel is okay but a higher concentrate can block filters," explains Vanessa Guyll. "If you're in any doubt about putting biofuels in your car, contact the manufacturer of your vehicle."
And Christopher McGowan, chief executive of the Society of Motoring Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), adds: "You have to be very careful in the manufacturing process. There are some tricky chemicals."
He also warns anyone with a new car under warranty against using their own biofuel. "If you buy a brand new car, you would want to be very certain that it was approved by the dealer.
5 Amazing Ways to Tie Your Sneakers
Collected from http://www.hourlylaff.com
To know more visit: http://www.hourlylaff.com/15-amazing-ways-to-tie-your-sneakers
To know more visit: http://www.hourlylaff.com/15-amazing-ways-to-tie-your-sneakers
20 Simple Juice Recipes
20 Simple Juice Recipes
Carrot/Apple Juice
* 6 carrots
* 2 apples
Liver Mover
* 2-3 carrots
* ½ beet
Bromeiain Special
* pineapple (skin & all)
unscrew top and throw away
Orange or Grapefruit
* 3 oranges (peeled)
or 1 grapefruit (peeled)
Evening Regulator
* 2 apples
* 1 pear
Digestive Special
* handful of spinach
* 6 carrots
Holiday Cocktail
* 2 apples
* 1 large bunch of grapes
* 1 slice lemon with peel
Body Cleanser
* 4 carrots
* ½ cucumber
* 1 beet
Rejuvenator
* handful of parsley
* 3 carrots
* 2 celery stalks
* 2 cloves of garlic
Cantaloupe Juice
* cut into strips and juice
(rind and all)
The Waldorf
* 1 stalk celery
* 2 apples
Sunshine Cocktail
* 2 apples
* 4-6 strawberries
Energy Shake
* handful of parsley
* 6 carrots
Watermelon Juice
* cut into strips and juice
(rind and all)
Potassium Broth
* 1 handful of spinach
* 1 handful of parsley
* 2 stalks of celery
* 4-6 carrots
AAA Juice
* 6 carrots
* 1 apple
* 2 stalks of celery
* ½ handful of wheatgrass
* ½ handful of parsley
* ½ beet
Passion Cocktail
* 4 strawberries
* 1 large chuck pineapple
* 1 bunch black grapes
Morning Tonic
* 1 apple
* 1 grapefruit (peeled)
Digestive Cocktail
* ¼ lemon with peel
* ½ grapefruit (peeled)
* 2 oranges
Alkaline Special
* ¼ head cabbage (red or green)
* 3 stalks of celery
Carrot/Apple Juice
* 6 carrots
* 2 apples
Liver Mover
* 2-3 carrots
* ½ beet
Bromeiain Special
* pineapple (skin & all)
unscrew top and throw away
Orange or Grapefruit
* 3 oranges (peeled)
or 1 grapefruit (peeled)
Evening Regulator
* 2 apples
* 1 pear
Digestive Special
* handful of spinach
* 6 carrots
Holiday Cocktail
* 2 apples
* 1 large bunch of grapes
* 1 slice lemon with peel
Body Cleanser
* 4 carrots
* ½ cucumber
* 1 beet
Rejuvenator
* handful of parsley
* 3 carrots
* 2 celery stalks
* 2 cloves of garlic
Cantaloupe Juice
* cut into strips and juice
(rind and all)
The Waldorf
* 1 stalk celery
* 2 apples
Sunshine Cocktail
* 2 apples
* 4-6 strawberries
Energy Shake
* handful of parsley
* 6 carrots
Watermelon Juice
* cut into strips and juice
(rind and all)
Potassium Broth
* 1 handful of spinach
* 1 handful of parsley
* 2 stalks of celery
* 4-6 carrots
AAA Juice
* 6 carrots
* 1 apple
* 2 stalks of celery
* ½ handful of wheatgrass
* ½ handful of parsley
* ½ beet
Passion Cocktail
* 4 strawberries
* 1 large chuck pineapple
* 1 bunch black grapes
Morning Tonic
* 1 apple
* 1 grapefruit (peeled)
Digestive Cocktail
* ¼ lemon with peel
* ½ grapefruit (peeled)
* 2 oranges
Alkaline Special
* ¼ head cabbage (red or green)
* 3 stalks of celery
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