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Backup your Opera Data with OperaBackup
Dec 22nd
If you are using Opera Browser and want to back up all the browser data to another PC, then the free utility Opera Back up should be useful. OperaBackup is smart and easy to use application that lets you create and restore backups of all data as bookmarks, passwords, configuration, etc. of your Opera browser. Once installed, it can take a back up of all the user profile or a specific user profile.
The interface is pretty simple and it provides you with two options, Backup and Restore a back up. You can select the user profile from the list of available profiles.
F you are selecting the define user profile option, then you need to manually profile the path to the opera folder, preferences and also the email and RSS folders. Opera Backup is a pretty useful utility to back up and restore Opera profiles which includes bookmarks, configuration etc.
[Via LifeRocks 2.0]
LogMeIn releases LogMeIn Express for free…
Dec 15th
LogMeIn has been around for quite awhile now as a very useful free remote access tool for casual users, as well as a commercial remote access tool for corporations. They’ve now taken the obvious step of putting their technology to use in the form of a screen sharing application called LogMeIn Express.
The idea here is that you can quickly share your Windows computer’s screen with up to 100 viewers by sending them a short 12-digit code and directing them to the LogMeIn Express website. Entering the code will then open a Flash-based page containing the contents of your computer’s screen. As the presenter, you need to install a small piece of native Windows software, but the installation process is quick and painless, and offers 256-bit SSL encryption.
LogMeIn Express competes with more full-featured commercial screen sharing tools like GoToMeeting and WebEx, and though it’s a much more simple implementation, it stacks up well. GoToMeeting is significantly faster than most competitors due to it being based on Citrix’s Terminal Services technology, but LogMeIn Express competes well with WebEx. It doesn’t currently include conference calling features which both of the commercial options do, but it does include an in-session chat module, and the ability to pass control of the host computer to one of the viewers.
LogMeIn Express is still in beta, but is free for both commercial and non-commercial use.
[Via DownloadSquad]
Download the Google Chrome OS Virtual Machine via GeekLad
Nov 20th
Last week, Techcrunch reported rumors of the release of the Google Chrome OS. They stated that the info came from a reliable source, and indeed that source was reliable. Google had an event at their headquarters, and indeed provided new details and a demo of the Chrome OS. The Chromium Blog has some great videos that provide some additional information about Chrome OS as well.
The Chromium OS source code is available for download (Chromium OS is the open-source version of Google Chrome OS), and you can compile and build it. It took some time, but I did manage to do this on my 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) machine. I also managed to put together a VirtualBox virtual appliance that is all ready to go. I built a torrent for it, so feel free to download it here:
Download the Chromium OS VirtualBox Appliance Torrent
Please continue to seed, as I’m sure there will be many people out there wanting to try it out.
To use it, just start up VirtualBox, click File and then Import. Navigate to the chromiumos.ovf file and select it. The virtual appliance will be imported into VirtualBox and you should be good to go.
I also included a txt file that more or less has the commands I used to build it. You may be able to run it as a script, although I haven’t confirmed that it will work. I guess you could say I more or less took “script-like notes” as I was building Chromium OS.
If you hit Ctrl+Alt+T when you first log in, you’ll get a shell prompt. You can run “sudo su” (no quotes) to log in as root, and I’ve set the password to “password” (no quotes). If you use this machine for anything serious (although I doubt you would), be sure to change the password.
It is absolutely astounding how fast it boots. It really is nearly instant-on and takes a mere few seconds to bring up the login screen.
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Once you log in with your Gmail account, it launches and you’ll see the Chromium interface open up to your Gmail. There is also a Google Calendar tab and a New Tab tab. The little chrome sphere appears in the upper left corner, but when you click on it you don’t get a menu as you see in some of the Chrome OS videos. Instead, you get a Google.com account login page.
As you can see, it looks very much like the Chrome OS screenshots that had surfaced last month. Of course, being that this is running on a virtual machine without any decent video drivers on the operating system, the resolution is quite low (800×600). Your dear old granddad may be the only one that actually finds it visually appealing at this resolution.
Right now the most impressive thing is how fast this operating system loads. Of course, it should load fast because there really is hardly anything there. In any case, it is rather neat to see an early release in action. The fact that it actually works on a virtual machine is quite promising. Eventually as drivers for more hardware are incorporated into it, it should be possible to run it your own real hardware.
I also found a VMWare virtual disk image on a Google Wave about the Chrome OS. You can download it here:
Download the Chromium OS VMWare Virtual Disk Image
As of now, the link to the VMWare disk image is valid and the download works. However, I haven’t tried using it, so I can’t confirm that it will run on VMWare without issue. Enjoy your Google Chrome OS virtual machines!
[Via GeekLad]
Create hotkeys on your Windows Machine with Keyboard Tweaker.
Oct 22nd
We have all see those expensive keyboards with keys on them that launch your email, favorite websites, applications and can even tweak volume controls. Now we aren’t going to run out and drop some duckets on a new keyboard to get some hotkeys… But what if I told you that you can duplicate that functionality and designate keys that are not frequently used on your machine as hotkeys for specific actions?
Sounds awesome right? And it is! Let’s take a look at Keyboard Tweaker from Buturga Alex.
I started by downloading the 732kb zip file containing the installer. I know everything has been portable lately but this needs to be installed. We can see that the install will only use 1.5 mb of space on your hard drive and it’s memory footprint is also very small. But we will take a look at that in a little bit.
Once the install is complete you can check a check box to have it launched automatically or load it up from your start menu. Once it is launched you will see this screen and a new System Tray icon.
That is the system tray icon it looks like a cross between a bowling ball and a smiley face. When the bowling ball starts winking at you – it will become apparent that it is a smiley face! Right clicking on the icon will give you two options to either show or exit the application.
Once you have the console open you can start tweaking your keyboard. I first tried to modify some of the commands the author included. The first example is Control + Shift + E – this will open and email message in your default email client to the recipient in the hotkey. I changed his address to mine by highlighting the line and modifying it below:
Now when I hit Control + Shift + E – it does this:
Cool so you can test your shortcut by hitting the test button and you apply the changes by hitting the APLLY button. Now what I really wanted to do was to use my function keys as hotkeys. Let’s see how that worked out.
I went back to my console and scrolled down until I found Volume Up. I then modified it to just use F2 like this:
Hitting Test or F2 after clicking APLLY now not only brings up my volume but it also shows it on screen like so:
The possibilities are endless! You can have your machine doing anything at a push of a button. And if you write scripts, batch files or AutoIT scripts – this can launch those as well.
We would love to hear what you are using this or another hot key application for. Put us on in the comments!
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