Written by award-winning author Keir Thomas, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is a totally unique and concise guide for everyday Ubuntu use. It’s the world’s most popular Ubuntu book, with over half a million readers (and rising!).

Ubuntu is an Open Source operating system. That means that it is Free to download and use. The latest version of Ubuntu is very impressive. Linux for the average home desktop users has come a long way in the last couple of years. You can now do most tasks on the computer completely independent from Microsoft Windows, and still have files that are compatible. Ex: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. Anyways, without praising Ubuntu too much more in this post I suggest you check out the Official Ubuntu website to find out more info.

I came across Jing while attending the SXSW 2009 Tradeshow in Austin, Tx and have loved using it ever since!

JingProject is brought to you by TechSmith. TechSmith has created other well know applications, and services. Such as Snagit,Camtasia, Screencast.com, and much more. I recommend that you try out Jing. It is a great product. You can download it from the official Jing Website. Use their free service and if you need to you can go pro for only 14.95 per year. A great price! The pro version lets you record in premium video format (MPEG-4 AVC), upload to more video sharing sites and removes the Jing logo from your screen captures.

http://jingproject.com

Click Here To Check out the Official Logmein.com

I have used this free remote connection service to troubleshoot problems for friends and family. It has also come in handy to check on my desktop computer activities while at the office. As long as the computer that you are trying to login to is powered on and the logmein software is running in the background then you can access it remotely.

You do have the option of upgrading your service if you need more abilities, however I can tell you that for remote access in general this service has been great for me.

Nero has released a free version of their software that enables Windows users to burn CDs and DVDs. I know you are asking what the catch is, so let me clear that up. This version(9.4.12.3) is limited to burning data onto CDs and DVDs.

So, yes there are limits, but I remember the days before open source availability where you had to buy even programs to burn data discs. These days you can also burn data discs directly from your operating system which makes it even easier to get data onto your media of choice.

However, it is great that companies are seeing the advantage of offering certain things for free as well as paid services.

Download Software here

General system requirements

• ­Windows® XP SP2 or SP3, Windows Vista®, Windows® 7, Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 with SP2
• Windows® XP 64 bit, Windows Vista® 64 bit, and Windows® 7 64 bit versions are supported via 32 bit emulation mode.
• Windows® Internet Explorer® 6.0 or higher.
• 1 GHz Intel® Pentium® III or equivalent AMD and Intel® processor (2 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or equivalent AMD and Intel® processor for Windows Vista®), 256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM for Windows Vista®).
• ~270MB hard drive space for a typical installation of all components.
• ~500MB hard drive space temporary for the installation
• CD or DVD recordable or rewritable drive for burning.
• DirectX® 9.0c revision 30 (August 2006) or higher.
• Up to 9 GB available hard drive space for DVD images and temporary DVD files.
• Graphics card with at least 32 MB video memory, minimum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, and 16-bit color settings (24-bit or 32-bit true color is recommended).
• Installation of the latest WHQL certified device drivers is strongly recommended.
• For the Nero Online services: Nero product registration, product updates, and other features an Internet connection is required.

I have come to love hulu.com over the past year and a half. For those of you who have not heard of Hulu, it is a website that brings you TV and Movies online. They bring you shows from the major television and networks.

Hulu has recently launched a free desktop application that lets you watch the video content through a application on your desktop. You may be asking yourself why this is beneficial? The best answer to that is that you can use a remote control device to navigate easily through all of the video content of the website. The Hulu Desktop interface is very similar to Apple TV.

I personally use my MacBook Pro, and apple remote to watch via Hulu Desktop. It works great for relaxing and watching tv shows. I have included two screen shots of my Hulu desktop so that you can see it in action.

Click Below to download Hulu Desktop

I have recently came across a service that lets you broadcast live video feeds from your website with only some simple basic tools. All you need is a computer, a web cam, and an internet connection. The service is called Livestream, and they have developed a powerful software that enables average people to broadcast live, and record for later on demand viewing.

This is a browser based software, however they also have some desktop applications that you can download and use also.

There is a widget that you can embed onto your website that provides the live feed, as well as all videos that were previously recorded. It is a great tool to add both live & recorded video to your website at no cost since the basic
service is free.

I have had the opportunity to use this service in a real time environment, and was able to get some real feedback from an active audience, and I have been very impressed with the results.

I would encourage you to go to www.livestream.com and  checkout the service for yourself. It is a low cost way to get some easy professional looking video streaming on your website.

I am writing this post to inform anyone that has purchased T-mobile’s new webConnect USB Laptop Stick, that is does work with OSX. The hardware is supported, even though officially T-mobile has not released the software that works specifically with this model of air card.

In this post I am going to tell you the work around that I have found to make the Webconnect Stick work on my apple.

I went through several Technical support Rep’s at T-mobile support, and they all said that this could not be done.

After some research I came across a European T-mobile webstick that was very similar to the one that I had. I downloaded the European software and then copied the files over to my webConnect USB stick. This did write over the current firmware, but the process is completely reversible. You will need to use a PC with windows to make the following update to the USB stick. Here are the steps:

1.) Download the Mobile Connect Software from here: Mobile Connect

(Here is the User Manual if you would like to read more details about the software)

2.) Insert Your webConnect USB stick into the PC, and ignore any prompts that is gives you.

3.) Run the E180-WINMAC.exe file.

2.) This will overwrite the firmware on the USB stick.

3.) Now you can plug the stick into your Mac(Leopard OSX tested).
You will need to go to System Preferences > Network to accept the drivers for the new firmware.

You will see three new connections in the left hand section of the Network cards area.
4.) Click on Huawei Mobile. It will prompt you to allow this.

5.) Run the Mobile Connect app.

6.) Click on Setting

a.) Create a profile name. ex:T-mobile
b.) Add the Access Point Name:     internet2.voicestream.com
c.) Add the telephone number: *99#
d.) Authentication: PAP
e.) Click Save

7.) Click Connect, and it should connect and Authenticate your connection.

That’s it! Let me know if you have any questions.

The settings noted above in my post are from trial and error, and are what worked for me. They were not given to me from T-mobile. Credit is given to user ‘Wireless’ in T-mobile’s forum: http://forums.t-mobile.com/tmbl/board/message?board.id=Webcon&thread.id=86. Thank you wireless!