Posts tagged hack
Use a free Exchange server to sync up your calendar with one person and task list with another.
May 9th
Do you remember when Ask The Admin covered a very interesting topic of Free Exchange services? For those who don’t, you can look here, here and sometimes here.
In a nutshell, this article talked about how me and my fiance’ had to plan our wedding and had tons of appointments flying in from both directions.
In order to get our two phones talking to one another and playing nicely, I used a free Exchange hosting service called www.Mail2Web.com to enable my WinMo PDA and my fiance’s Blackjack to sync calendars every 10 minutes logging into the service through ActiveSync, as if they are the same phone. As a result, both phones would have the same calendar information, and keep it that way every ten minutes.
I’ve had this system going for some time now, and it’s been working just fine. I haven’t even had to login to the control panel for anything!While figuring out this howto, I noticed in my own phone that WinMo gives you 4 categories of info items to sync, (as illustrated by the image so cleverly placed on the top of this blog) – Contacts, Calendar, Email, and Tasks. I realized that my fiance’s BlackJack also had the choice of 4 different points of info to sync. This meant that every WinMo device can choose which information to sync with an ActiveSync Server Source and more importantly, which information NOT to sync with an Exchange Server. So we’ve established that my fiance’s BlackJack and my ATT 8525/Hermes were acting as if they had the same calendar – consider them synced.
So this was a real world problem solved by the fact that 2 people have phones with WinMo and Activesync, and the availability of a free exchange service @ www.Mail2Web.com.
Now onto the next real-world problem: The Admin and I have a lot of tasks involved with keeping our beloved website up and running, current and fresh. Throughout the months tasks have come and gone, but certain tasks fell through the sieve and got replaced by more current, more urgent tasks that took precedence at the time. So basically tasks were getting lost. Since neither of us used the built in Tasks application in WinMo, this presented the perfect opportunity to put my theory to the test.
I know that I already have 2 people logging into MY Mail2Web account to sync calendars. But what would be wrong with 3 people logging into that same account – except that my Fiance’ will only sync Calendar information, and The Admin will only sync Tasks information (and NOBODY syncs Contact information).
So I had the The Admin log into my Mail2Web account through his ActiveSync Server Connection and sync only Tasks, and I had my own phone begin to sync Tasks with the same service it was already syncing to for Calendar information, which coincidentally my Fiance’s phone was simultaneously syncing Calendar information with as well.
Problem solved:
Me and the Admin with synced Tasklist,
Me and the Fiance with synced Calendar.
Free.
Automatic.
Just the way we like it.
AskTheAdmin.com.
Free Tech Support for the Masses.
Commodore 64 (the one you used to play Bruce Lee on.)
Can I get Vista’s fonts for free on XP…Legally?
Mar 26th
The guys over at Ghacks are awesome and obviously not just for Google hacks check out this gem…
Today boys and girls we are going to learn how to get Vista’s Clear Type fonts for FREE! Just like AtA likes it!
As I said before the guys over at Ghacks helped me out today when I needed to get these Vista-esque fonts for a sales rep on the go. They were using XP and being very adamant about having the clean looking smooth Vista fonts for his presentation. Wait there’s more! The presentation was in 10 minutes! ..Gasp..

Sure on a normal day when I had more time I might have gone for one of my Vista install cd’s or hit up some of my less reputable search engines. But after a quick google I found the above article pointing me to download the FREE Power Point 2007 Viewer.
I remotely connected to the sales dude’s laptop via my single click vnc link. I pushed the small installer on over to his machine. Installed it and just like that… We had Vista fonts! Score.
In case I didn’t say Ghacks enough let me say it again… Thanks GHACKS you guys rock.
Access your Tivo’s hidden webserver! Download, strip and rip. Part One.
Mar 24th
After figuring out I could edit Blogger blog posts from my mobile I decided to see what I could do with my TiVo while I am away. I went online and did some research. I found this tid-bit from Dave Zatz (Sling Media) and gave it a shot.
Allow me to bring you kids up to speed. Essentially, TiVos are just nicely packaged Linux boxes with TV capture cards, hard drives, and a cutesy visual operating system that everyone has grown to love. It’s nice to know the open Linux spirit is in full swing at Tivo, because the developers at Tivo have happily included an already running, https, port 80 web server!
You heard me correctly, I did NOT stutter. As long as you enabled the transfer option from TiVo online you can access a web server built into your Tivo. To do this all you need to do is simply point your browser at your TiVo’s local IP address using https://…
The address bar would look like this:
https://192.168.0.3/
I simply entered this address into my browser and it prompted me for a username and password. The username to use is always tivo and the password is your Media Access Key.
Your media access key can be found via your tivo interface or on your TiVo.com account.
Now how can you use this information while you are away?
Point your router to forward port 80 and 443 to your TiVo, Now by typing in your routers external IP address from any where in the world you can download your .TIVO files.
I hear you all saying:
They are encrypted and all Admin what good is that? and How does this help me?
Well these .TIVO files are just MPEG2 files with a shiny restrictive layer of prohibitive crap. But, no worries lets get that file cracked open so you can burn it to DVD or move it around at your own will. TiVo to go lets you do some of this stuff but The Admin hates being restricted to, well, anything.
Lets get you Downloading, Stripping and Ripping… (This is for your own access we are not teaching you to be nor advocating piracy…)
Tune back in for part two of our TiVo – download, strip and rip series tomorrow.
How to add Hibernate as a 4th option in XP’s Shut-Down Menu
Feb 16th
You might have seen it before on someone else’s laptop, and wondered how you can get down with the hibernation game. Why doesn’t it show up by default on your shutdown screen?? Don’t have hibernation envy!
I’m referring to seeing 4 options to choose from on your Shut Down menu of Windows XP. After this hack the Hibernate option will stay there without the need to press the Shift key any more.
Well- let’s get to it:
The first thing to do is get a hold of Microsoft’s hotfix KB893056. MS wants you to call its customer support to get it, but instead- you can use this web-form to request it immediately.
After we installed the hotfix, we need to make some small registry changes. Get it here
For those of you working in a Workgroup environment and using the friendly “Welcome Screen” you need to run the Reg-file called: “1 AddToShutdown”. If you use the classic logon screen you can also run the 2nd Reg-file to set Hibernate as the default action in the menu.
When you’re finished just restart the machine and check it out!
Needless to says that you must have the Hibernate feature on in your Control Panel’s Power Options. or else nothing would appear obviously.
Enjoy :-)
YaronM
Guest Blogger
Build A Stand Alone Bit Torrent Computer Out Of An Old PC & Ubuntu
Sep 7th
Direct from the website Nerdica (What a name!). Put that old pc you have collecting dust back to work. Crack that whip and build a dedicated BT server that will never use up your precious hard drive space with downloads of the Simpsons and Futurama when you need it for those work files.
And now you can increase your productivity - that is if you want to :) Separate your BitTorrenting activities from your mission critical work!
While most of our time on the Internet is spent IM’ing, e-mail, or just browsing the Web, you may run in to situations when you need to do some powerful file transfers. If you use a laptop, you’re use to getting up, suspending your laptop, and running out the door all of the time. But, sometimes you know you just need something dedicated to get work done. You’ll need a solution to retrieve files and serve data when you need it. In this guide, you’ll learn how to set a small headless Ubuntu server used to retrieve BitTorrent files, while even saving them to a external USB hard drive that can be disconnected on the go. You even discover how to remotely administer your server from the Web using SSH, VNC, and an intuitive HTML UI, while being able to retrieve files while you’re away from home.This tutorial takes for granted you have a spare computer laying around. Building a computer is out of the scope of this article. Edit: (But not out of AtA’s Realm Hit Us up!!!)

Check out the whole tutorial here. Let us know how that works out for ya…
iPhone productivity Tip for switching between letters and numbers easier!
Aug 11th
Writer David Cohen tells us about his new favorite iPhone tip over @ his blog.
Since I got my new iPhone, I’ve read a million stupid tips. Maybe this is another one, or maybe you’ll find this one really nice to have like I do.
Let’s say you want to type “Goober5A” as a user name (no, this is not my user name – I’m making it up – really).
When you get to the 5, you’re probably hitting the little 123 button to switch to number mode, hitting 5, then hitting the button to switch back to alpha mode. Quit doing that. Instead, hold down the 123 button, slide your finger to the 5, then let go. Magic. Genius.
Improving iPhone users quality of texting one tip @ a time :) _theAdmiN_


