Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts

2.06.2011

Send & Receive Unlimited Faxes For Free

While most mass communication is doe through email, sometimes you still have to revert to using a fax machine. While fax machines are space consuming, and typically require some type of phone service, more and more web fax services are coming up, and allowing users to use the basic service for free.

By using a combination of popular service eFax, and the lesser known fax, but highly popular SIP service, SIPGate, you can now send and receive unlimited fax messages with your very own personal fax number (for free).

Head on over to eFax and sign up for a free account. Then sign up for the totally free sipgate one package with SIPGate.

After signing up for these 2 services you should have 2 different fax numbers. One from each service. Fortunately SIPGate will let us change our outgoing caller ID number for SIP calls or for faxes. All we will worry about now is the fax part.

By now you also should have received an email from eFax with your fax number.



Take your eFax number, and use that for the outgoing caller ID. This way when you send a fax with SIPgate, the return number will show as your eFax number which has the ability to receive faxes. SIPGate's free account is only outgoing, which is why we have to have both services.

Once you are logged into your SIPGate account, go to the top right corner and click the settings button. From there you will have the option to click, "Fax" on the left hand sidebar; where you will the below screen.






While this is not the most convenient method if you are a heavy fax user. This is plenty sufficient for the occasional fax user who doesn't want to have to buy a fax machine or pay for service on it. You are notified of incoming faxes via email and or text message, and after installing the desktop eFax service, can use another plugin such as PrimoPDF to turn that fax into a PDF.

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12.30.2008

Admin Your Router

If you have never logged into your router or configured it, try typing in 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1 in your browsers address bar and use admin, password or 1234 as your password, and either use admin as your username, or just leave the username field blank. If that does not work then refer to your users manual or find your router's default password using Router Passwords or Default Router Passwords. If all else fails you can always search Google for the username/password for your router. If you are using a Time Capsule, the username/password may be pre-programed to each Time Capsule.


(Image Courtesy of AppleInsider.com)

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1.05.2008

Disguise Your Browser

Access websites you are blocked from due to your browser. One of the most annoying things to me is the way that Microsoft has made Office Live and some other pages of their website only accessible to Internet Explorer users. I do have internet explorer, but it loads way slower than Safari or Firefox. The solution to this is to disguise your browser. Mozilla Firefox add-on User Switch Agent allows you to do just that. Simply install the addon and add the button to your toolbar for easy access. I have found that Office Live will now load in and work in Firefox, but is still very error filled in Firefox. If you need a list of possible browser types you can see a list here.

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10.12.2007

Virtually Install any Operating System and Run It Natively

One tip for installing any second (2nd) third (3rd)...operating system, Virtually install them and then run them natively without going through a native install using WMWorkstation.

This is acually a very easy way to install virtually any operating system to your physical hard drive while you are running your current operating system. For some operating systems such as Windows, you can easily choose to install your OS with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). For others such as Linux you must restart your computer and boot with the CD or DVD inside. For those who are not very comfortable with doing this and fear they might install to the wrong hard drive or partition and erase the wrong stuff I would try this alternative I discovered. What is even better is that you can always go back and use VMWare to access files from the new OS, while you are using the old OS.


READ EVERYTHING BEFORE STARTING


If you don't have or plan on buying VMWare Workstation just dowload the trial. You can actually just download the trial and set up your OS as the trial is full featured, but time limited.



How To:
  • File>New>Virtual Machine>
  • Custom
  • Hardware Compatibility Workstation6 (Or the newest version that is listed.)
  • Choose the type of OS you will be installing.
  • Name the virtual machine anything you would like. Save it on the same drive or partition you are currently using for your primary OS, or the OS you will be using when you install the new OS.
  • Most likely wou will want to choose One Processor so your computer will not give to much processing power to the VM. (the option for two processors is only made available when you have either a Dual-Core Processor, or a Dual Processor).
  • Choose the amount of memory you would like your VM to use. I used just over half of what I had in my physical memory.
  • Use Bridged Networking
  • Use Bus Logic
  • Use a Physical Disk
  • Very carefully choose which hard drive and partition you would like to install the new OS to.
  • Name and, make sure the .vkmd Disk Descriptor File is stored in the same place as your Virtual Machine Settings (by default it is stored in the same place). Note where it is stored, you will need to edit those files in just a minute.
  • Then press CTRL+D>Under Floppy uncheck the Connect at power on box.> Click Okay, and then close VMWare. Here is the hard part, you are going to need to right click>open with>notepad.


Locate the .VMX file for this VM and remove:
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.fileName = "FreeBSD.vmdk"
scsi0:0.deviceType = "rawDisk"
Add the following lines:
scsi0.present = "FALSE"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "FreeBSD.vmdk"
ide0:0.redo = ""
ide0:0.mode = "independent-persistent"
Replace "FreeBSD.vmdk with the name of your .vkmd Disk descriptor file.

Now open the .vkmd file and change:
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
to ddb.adapterType = "ide"

Save, close and now open VMWare, and put begin the installation. Once you are done, you can close VMWare and natively boot into your new OS as if it were installed natively.

If possible, when you are installing that extra OS, save the new boot entry to the hard drive which the operating system is being installed on rather than to the MBR (Master Boot Record) as you will most likely will able to configure your dual boot using EasyBCD in the current OS rather than having to mess with the new boot screen. This is how I avoided GRUB. You will want to add the boot entries for you new OS before you install, add entries for all the places you think the OS may be installed. This is a great way to test to see where everything is installed, and it also ensures you will be able to access everything without any worries.



Troubleshooting:

Drivers
What is great is that VMWare will run any OS even if some hardware drivers are missing becasue you can choose which hardware to include. In my case, I installed Ubuntu only to find it would not boot on my notebook because I did not have the bcm43xx wireless drivers. What I did is went into VMWare and installed the drivers as I had no wireless card in VMWare, just a virtual ethernet connection that was bridged to my real connection.

Install Location
The other problem I ran into was that once I try to natively boot linux, it was searching for an install on disk 0, not disk 1. I just had to go into Ubuntu from VMWare and change this and everything was okay. The alternative is to edit your boot entry during the boot process by pressing eand then changing the install location to the appropriate place. I think linux is the only type of OS that has this problem. Windows and OS X86 worked fine for me without having to change the install location.

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9.13.2007

Mozilla Add-on: Hackbar "will NOT learn you how to hack a site"

Well this is funny, I did not think that anyone actually made this mistake. I have seen this on many different types of grammar test/quizzes as an obvious example. I was looking for some new Firefox Add-ons when when I saw this on the Add-Ons homepage.

After clicking on this to see what it was I quickly spotted this huge grammar error on the page giving more information about the Add-on.

# In general
This toolbar will help you in testing sql injections, XSS holes and site security. It is NOT a tool for executing standard exploits and it will NOT learn you how to hack a site. Its main purpose is to help a developer do security audits on his code. If you know what your doing, this toolbar will help you do it faster. If you want to learn to find security holes, you can also use this toolbar, but you will probably also need a book, and a lot of google :)


I never had seen such an obvious mistake published in something such as the Add-ons page.


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Google Security on Torpark

I find this interesting, while I was using Torpark yesterday I got this message from Google. I was very excited when I got this message because I knew for sure my computer was not able to be indentified. The only problem is that I was assigned a German IP address and if you will notice in the picture below I am at google.de. Either way, I was happy to know that it works because now I can test one of those Free... offers for different stuff by creating a second account to see if it really ads me as a referal. What is great about the offer I am signing up for is that I have completed the same offer before but through someone else and I received my download the next day. Basically it cost me about 50 cents to get a $25 download. By the way this particular offer is for a free 20" iMac.




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9.03.2007

Track Your IP Address & Router Uptime

The Firefox Add-on, Router Status does just that for free.

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Toolbar Notifications: Specto

Specto can alert you of web and email alerts right in your taskbar. This is only for Linux though.

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Google Features

Google Shortcuts & Features poeple often don't know about. One of my favorite being GOOG-411 and Google SMS. Just about if not everything from Google is either completely free or has a free basic version or something similar to that.

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Control Your Computer By Whistle

This is new, but might seem useful at times.
"IBM developerWorks offers instructions on how to interact with your computer by whistling -- that's right, whistling.
Use Linux or Microsoft Windows, the open source sndpeek program, and a simple Perl script to read specific sequences of tonal events -- literally whistling, humming, or singing at your computer -- and run commands based on those tones. Give your computer a short low whistle to check your e-mail or unlock your screensaver with the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

This method isn't for beginners - it requires modifying several scripts and it takes about an hour to complete. Looking for more hands-free tricks? Checkout how you can play with your computer using Bluetooth interaction and speech recognition. This definitely brings new meaning to the adage, "whistle while you work."

Whistle while you work to run commands on your computer [IBM developerWorks]" (Lifehacker-Kyle Pott)



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Podcasting Toolbox

If you're looking into starting a podcast here is a great set of tools to do so.

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9.02.2007

Web Alarm: Plays Videos or MP3's

ALARMd is the web alarm that can play last.fm music or your own MP3s that are stored online. You can also have it play YouTube videos and customize when you want the alarm to go off. The downside is that your video can be deleted, the site may be down, and you have to have your computer on. A good time to use it would be when you just need a reminder. For instance you could find a video that will remind you about what you have to do; and then set an alarm to go off fullscreen.

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