Today, in our Freeware Page we posted a review about Pandora.com: an online free website which offers free music listening based on your preferences. Once on Pandora.com you can decide to try it or to register for free (just an email and a new Pandora password are required). After this you can start creating new radio stations based on your favorite artists. In just few clicks, you can even listen your Pandora stations directly on your Blackberry, iPhone, PalmPre or Windows Mobile device. Using the QuickMix feature you can melt different stations in just an unique selection to share (if you want) with your friends. Pandora is legal and free but sometimes (not very often for my experience) some commercial ads are broadcasted. Anyway, in a couple of hours I was able to refine my new station options & variety and till now I am really satisfied by this service. Recommended!

Category Archives: Tecnologia
How to recover your accounts and password on Windows using a Linux Live CD: Ophcrack
Today, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we posted a post about Ophcrack: a Linux Live CD which allows you to recover your Windows password when you forgot them. Sincerely, the described above situation is not common but it could really happen especially when you do not use a PC for some time or if you want to help a friend who is not so skilled with its own computer. Ophcrack is easy to use, sufficiently fast and effective. I tested it to recover some passwords on an old laptop and the results were very interesting; in fact I was able to recover password from accounts I totally forgot to own. Useful! This post has been written just for informative purpose! Please, remind that you are directly responsible for any law violation you commit in case of misuse of the information contained above.

How to create free different local telephone numbers linked to your Skype identity: Ring2Skype
This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief post about Ring2Skype. Ring2Skype is a new free service which allows you to create local telephone numbers linked to your Skype user-id. After filling in few datas you get a telephone number in 31 different countries. In your email you will find a welcome letter with a summary of all the data of your new Ring2Skype account, your new telephone number and an extension to share with your local contacts. In this way, a person located in a different country could call you spending just for a local call. On the other hand it is possible to create more local telephone numbers so all your contacts in different countries could be in contact with you as if you are living in their same city. Recommended if it will remain free also in the future!

Something to know before the release of Firefox 3.5: how to disable the geo-locating feature.
This week in our Freeware Page we we have written a quick post about disabling geo-locating feature in the upcoming Firefox 3.5. I have always been an enthusiastic supporter of Firefox because I think it is so flexible that I can find any add-on I need for any purpose. I am also sure that the new Firefox 3.5 will be the perfect tool for my everyday navigation but there is something I am a little bit annoyed. In fact, the Firefox 3.5 will contain a default feature (which can be triggered remotely by a website you are visiting) declaring your geo-location everytime you connect to a site. This feature (previously known as project Geode by Mozilla Labs) could be useful for people involved in social networking but it is a potential wasting time feature for all the others. In fact, you have to declare if you want to automatically display your geo-location each time a website triggers this feature. For this reason, if you are not a social network addict, my personal advice is to disable this geo-locating feature as soon as you install (or update to) Firefox 3.5… (it continues in the Freeware Page).

Mojopack 2.0: a software to create a portable Windows XP VS Damn Small Linux
Today, in our Freeware Page, we have posted a brief review about Mojopack a free (for 90 days, sic!) software which allows to bring your personal OS (with all the configurations) practically everywhere with you. To use Mojopac you need a working Windows XP OS, an USB portable disk or key and the Mojopac software. After the download, you can install it on your USB key in just few minutes. Mojopac works sufficiently silky on USB 2 connections but if you have time and are very patient you can use it with USB 1.1 ports. Last but not least, be sure to have administrator access privileges but some new versions, able to solve this problem, are in the plans. On the other hand we want to focus your attention on Damn Small Linux which is 100% free and can be intalled on CD, DVD, USB devices or simply embedded on your Windows XP computer. After some tests we really preferred this Linux solution because is completely free and very intuitive to use after just a couple of hours. Recommended!

Alien-GUI: an useful software tool to grafically convert deb and tar packages to RPM
Today, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we added a brief news about Alien-GUI which is an interesting software developed to grafically (and automatically) convert tar, deb in RPM. As you already know, RPM is the package manager used to install software on different Linux system as (but not only) Mandriva, Fedora, Red Hat and Suse. Before installing Alien GUI, it is necessary to install Alien directly from Synaptics Package Manager (System – Administration). Alien GUi is very simple to use thanks to its intuitive graphic interface and it passed our test when we use it on a Mandriva. To sum up Alien Gui is a useful tool that sometimes could help all us to fastly solve some package compatibility problems in just few clicks. Recommended!

How to test Moblin 2.0 beta – an experimental Linux OS, optimized for Netbook and Mobile Internet Devices (MID).
Today, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we posted a brief tutorial about the beta version of Moblin: a new Linux OS, -by the Linux Foundation and supported by Intel to increase the diffusion of its Atom processor- which has been developed especially for MID and Netbooks. Moblin, in its Beta version looks stable and full of features (Wimax included) and it is in constant development. At the moment we suggest to test it on a USB key. For this, after dowloading the .img file we can us imageWriter (Applications – Accessories – ImageWriter). If you need to install ImageWriter, please use Synaptics (System – Administration – Synaptics Package Manager) and in the search file type usb-imagewriter and install this program using the right button on your mouse. In our opinion, Moblin 2.0 beta, is realy well developed, all the menus are intuitive and easy to use and the graphics is more than sufficient. At the moment Moblin guys are testing this new version on Acer Aspire One, Asus eeePC 901, 1000H, Dell Mini 9, MSI Wind, Lenovo S10, Samsung NC10, HP Mini 1010 and 1120NR and we hope they could extend the Netbooks models in the near future. Recommended!

How to build a website or blog using just free online tools. Part 1
Today, in our Freeware Page we posted the first part of a brief research we made to discover the free online services, now available, to create webpages and posts. In particular, in this Part 1 we tested http://disposablewebpage.com/ and http://posterous.com/. Disposablewebpage is a very particular website builder because each website you create, has a life of just 90 days. It could be useful for all that temporary projects you want to share with your friends for a brief period or to
reach specific goals in a bigger plan. Disposablewebpage is very simple to use but the graphic results are very basic. On the other hand, disposablewebpage allows you to invite your friends or your colleagues in order to completely share the website and the project. In our point of view, Posterous is even more interesting because it is so simple to use that everyone can develop his/her own post. We tried posterous and we were able to create and update our new test post in not more than five minutes. You can post just using your email (gmail.com, yahoo.com,hotmail.com, or aol .com); you have to insert the title in the subject field and attach all the images you want directly on your email. Recommended!

How to install Ubuntu Tweak and Moblock on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty
Today , in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we posted a brief review about installing Ubuntu Tweak and Moblock on Ubuntu 9.04. We have read different websites on these topics but the best are the official ones that we advise you to visit them:
http://ubuntu-tweak.com/downloads for Ubuntu Tweak and
http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/ for Moblock.
Ubuntu Tweak is the most flexible graphical interface to configure desktop and system options on your Jaunty. On the other side,Moblock is a powerful software to protect your privacy when you surf internet and it is based on a huge list of IP address which are not considered as friendly.
We strongly believe that the most efficient solution is to add the sources on your Software Sources (System – Administration – Software Sources); for Ubuntu Tweak:
1 – using Terminal, import the key sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com FE85409EEAB40ECCB65740816AF0E1940624A220
2 – import the source on the Software Sources
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ubuntu jaunty main
3 – install Ubuntu Tweak (using Terminal)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
To add Moblock in your sources it is necessary:
1 – import the keys, using Terminal
gpg –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 9C0042C8
gpg –export –armor 9C0042C8 | sudo apt-key add –
2 – import the source on the Software Sources
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jre-phoenix/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jre-phoenix/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
3 – install Moblock (using Terminal)
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install moblock blockcontrol mobloquer
How to activate Ctrl+Alt+Backspace on your Linux OS
Today, in our Linux Page, we posted a brief tip (in Spanish) about Ctrl+Alt+Backspace function and how to activate it by default. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is very useful when you want to change your user or restart Xorg without shutting down your PC. To activate the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace function it is necessary to launch the Terminal and type:
$ sudo aptitude install dontzap -y
and, to activate the keyboard, just:
$ sudo dontzap -disable (yes, it is strange but -disable- is the right command)



