All Available Hacks
This is a complete list of the hacks that are available online. The hacks with a book-cover icon are sample hacks from that book. The hacks with no icon are reader-contributed hacks.
| Access | Amazon | Apache | Astronomy | BlackBerry | Blogging | BSD | Car PC | Digital Photography | Digital Video | eBay | Email | Excel | Firefox | Flash | Gaming | Google | Google Maps | Greasemonkey | Halo 2 | Home Theater | iPod and iTunes | IRC | Java | Knoppix | Linux Desktop | Linux Multimedia | Linux Server | Mac OS X | Mac OS X Panther | Mind | Network Security | Networking | Nokia Smartphone | Online Investing | Palm and Treo | Paypal | PC | PDF | Podcasting | Retro Gaming | Robotics | Smart Home | Spidering | Swing | Telecommunications | TiVo | Visual Studio | Web Site Measurement | Webmaster | Windows | Windows Server | Windows XP | Wireless | Word | XML | Yahoo! |
Access
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Create Access Tables from Outside Access You don't have to be in Access to use Access. |
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The Code | |
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Get All Combinations of Data Remove the Join clause in a SQL statement to return a Cartesian product (which returns all possible combinations). |
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Help Users Find the Objects They Need Place shortcuts to pertinent objects in custom groups so that users don't have to wade through all the database objects. |
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Save Paper by Reducing Whitespace Use the Can Shrink property to condense your reports. |
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Store Initial Control Selections for Later Recall The Tag property is a great place to store data about controls. Here's how to put it to good use. |
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Use Excel Functions Inside Access Expose powerful functions available in Excel to your Access application. |
Amazon
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Add an Amazon Sidebar Search to Mozilla Mozilla's built-in search engine sidebar provides a unique way to organize search results from several sources. Using Amazon's API you can add Amazon as a source with a few quick steps |
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The Code | |
| AmazonBox
Display your Amazon.com wishlist, listmania list or your Marketplace seller items by copying and pasting a small piece of javascript onto your web page. | |
| Contributed by: Paul Millar dazzle |
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| Christmas Shopping Hacks
Find gift suggestions using the given social hack or the given Google/Amazon hack. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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Compare International Sales Find out what products are hot on either side of the pond with Amazon locale-based queries |
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The Code | |
| considering special characters/umlauts
how to encode queries with special characters (e.g. umlauts) and decode the results | |
| Contributed by: Christian Wenz wenz |
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| Converting an ASCII top 100 list to a dynamic web site
In a nutshell, I converted an ASCII book list that I loved (located at: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6113/top100.html) into a more navigable list in HTML. | |
| Contributed by: Byrne Reese byrnereese |
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Create an Amazon AIM Bot Chat with some Perl code to get book prices via AOL Instant Messenger |
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The Code | |
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Create Shorter URLs Shortening a long Amazon URL is just a matter of knowing where to put the ASIN |
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Fine-Tune Your Recommendations As Amazon gets to know your tastes, it makes recommendations about products you might like. A few quick steps can ensure that your recommendations are on target |
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Jump to a Product Using Its ASIN Once you have a product's ASIN, you can jump straight to its product detail page |
| PDF product manuals on Amazon
I stumbled across a camera manual on Amazon in a Google search, and found that Amazon carries PDF versions of lots of electronics manuals | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Power-Search for Books Fine-tune your book searches with the Advanced Search form and Power Search queries |
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Program AWS with Perl A lightweight XML parser is all you need to work with Amazon's data in Perl scripts |
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The Code | |
| Publishing Mindshare
This hack is based on Spidering Hack#49 and Google Hack #79. One of the things I always did to help keep track of Linux's popularity is to go to the local bookstore and see how many shelves were dedicated to Linux and compare this to Microsoft Server software. I've did this with web/non-web and Perl/Java as well. Now we can automate this with Amazon's API. | |
| Contributed by: tommie |
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Rotate Through Several Keyword Banners on Your Site Keyword banners provide some rotation as people visit your site, but to do cross-promotion with several keywords across categories, you'll have to script a rotation solution |
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The Code | |
| Search Amazon from the sidebar
Search Amazon sites from the sidebar in either Mozilla or Opera web browsers. | |
| Contributed by: Paul Millar dazzle |
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Sell What People Want Looking for the "buyer waiting" status can help you figure out which books are in high demand |
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The Code | |
| Tracking Amazon SalesRank with Rankforest
Track an item's sales performance with the reflexes of a puma and the wisdom of a man. | |
| Contributed by: romej.com |
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Apache
| Allowing Simplistic User Preferences with SSI
A lot of sites offer the ability to change colors, to place columns on this side or that, or to open links in new browser windows. You have the need to do the same, but you don't want to create a server-side script in PHP, Perl or Python, and you don't want to use Javascript, fearing client side dependability. With SSI, you can minimally accomplish the same tasks. | |
| Contributed by: Morbus Iff morbus |
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| How to view the latest rotated apache log in linux.
A quick way to get the latest rotatelogs-generated logfile, and tail it. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| More Server Side Include Trickery
You know Server Side Includes have a decent amount of power under the hood, but you're not entirely sure what quickie trickies can be accomplished. Below, we'll touch on a number of simple SSI hacks that can be used for quick prototyping, simplistic logging or authentication, random file serving, and more. | |
| Contributed by: Morbus Iff morbus |
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| Quick File Cataloging with mod_autoindex
You have a need to catalog thousands of documents (mp3s, text files, jpgs, etc), but you don't have the time or inclination to create a decent PHP/MySQL indexing system. Nor do you want to get into complicated cookie authentication systems that would allow you to restrict users by file types ("only special people can download mp3s", etc.). Finally, creating the catalog indexes by hand is not a happy thought. | |
| Contributed by: Morbus Iff morbus |
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| Search Engine Friendly SSI Image Gallery
You need to upload and present a large number of images in a very short amount of time. To make matters worse, you don't have access to a database or a programming language, and you'd like the pages to be accessible via a search engine, so the final URLs can't have a "?" in them. Obviously, it's out of the question to create thousands of html files. | |
| Contributed by: Morbus Iff morbus |
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| Smarter 404s and Other Error Responses
As you check over your error_logs, you can see a lot of missing pages being requested. Where are they coming from? What pages are referring to them? Are they yours, or someone else's? Why? Why? Why!? Your plan is to start dealing with the dreaded 404 swiftly and surely - eliminating every last one of them. With the multiple solutions below, you'll be well on your way. | |
| Contributed by: Morbus Iff morbus |
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| Stop Email Harvesting Robots
You're fed up with the amount of spam you have been receiving, and you'd like to reduce the chance that spidering software will harvest your email from your webpages. Alternatively, you run a community site, and you'd like a quick and easy way of ensuring that your user's email addresses are protected from the same fate. You want to do something server side, not involving obfuscation of the email, javascript write's, or similar tricks that will eventually be worked around. | |
| Contributed by: Morbus Iff morbus |
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Astronomy
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Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope Balance your Dob perfectly without using springs, clutches, or other kludges. |
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Enhance Lunar and Planetary Contrast and Detail Choose a basic set of filters to improve the view. |
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Learn Urban Observing Skills Observe the universe from your own backyard. |
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Print Custom Charts Make the most of your observing time by taking along the charts you need. |
BlackBerry
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Add Users to the BES in Bulk Use a specially formatted file to add multiple users to your BlackBerry Enterprise Server in one fell swoop, saving you lots of pointing and clicking |
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Clear Your Inbox Quickly Process hundreds of messages in one fell swoop |
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Play Texas Hold 'Em Quit your day job and start playing everyone's favorite flavor of poker for a living |
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Run Programs in the Background "Minimize" programs using the BlackBerry equivalent of Windows's Alt-Tab |
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Track Message Delivery Time Use a built-in feature of the BlackBerry to monitor message delivery times |
Blogging
| "Recent Posts" Sidebar Code for Blogger Basic
A simple code for generating a sequential list of recent posts using permalink URLs for Blogger Basic. | |
| Contributed by: Lenka Reznicek reznicek111 |
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| Categories in Blogger
So you want to have Topics/Categories in Blogger... | |
| Contributed by: menglis3 |
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| ljmusic.py
Get history information (including a histogram) of Aritsts in your Livejournal posts | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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BSD
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Automate Security Patches Keep up-to-date with security patches |
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Build a Port Without the Ports Tree While the ports tree is one of the most useful FreeBSD directory structures, you may have systems where it's not appropriate to maintain the entire ports structure |
| FreeBSD - Giving up on buffers error with ext3 drives
The problem is that when you mount ext3 (Linux) drives in FreeBSD and reboot, you get a message on Giving up on Buffers ... and after the reboot the file systems are considered "unclean" and checked with fsck. | |
| Contributed by: Srini S ssrini |
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Fun with X Use the utilities that come with the core X distribution. |
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Rotate Your Signature End your email communications with a short witticism |
| Taming periodic emails
How to get FreeBSD's periodic to send you email only when you need to be alerted. | |
| Contributed by: Pretzel |
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Tighten Security with Mandatory Access Control Increase the security of your systems with MAC paranoia |
Car PC
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Add New Power Connectors Throughout Your Car Modern devices such as laptops, cell phones, and video cameras often have 12V power adapters so they can be used, or charged, from a car's cigarette lighter outlet. If you have more devices than outlets, you can easily add more power connectors |
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Build an in-Car Macintosh Check out how one programmer used OS X and a PowerMac G4 to meet his in-car computing needs |
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Control Your Car PC with Voice Recognition You can use software to make your car PC's navigation system and other functions voice-operated, just like the cool cars in the commercials |
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Customize Each Passenger's Video Imagine a peaceful cross-country road trip in which you never need to endure someone else's choice of music or movies, because everyone has a personalized entertainment center |
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Keep Your Computer on During Engine Cranking An already booted car PC will reboot whenever you start the car, unless you install the right hardware |
Digital Photography
Got a Digital Photography Hack?
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Brighten Teeth It seems like everyone wants whiter teeth these days. You might not have the time for peroxide-based solutions, but there's no need for such drastic measures anyway. This Photoshop hack takes only a few seconds and instantly removes years of stains |
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Capture Pictures of Your TV Screen You can photograph images of your television screen just as easily as any other subject, as long as you know the secret camera settings |
| Conversion of slides to digital images efficiently
Convert your old kodak slides to digital in an efficient manner. | |
| Contributed by: jlb51 |
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Convert Your Digicam to a Digital SLR Shading the LCD monitor for easier viewing during replay is one thing, but why not go all the way and use the monitor as a virtual SLR viewfinder for shooting images too? |
| Digiscoping
"Digiscoping" is a technique used by birders to take digital photos with their existing birding scopes. | |
| Contributed by: Terrie Miller terrie |
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| Digital Picture Frame
Rip apart an old 486 or P1 laptop with a good screen - mount it all in a picture frame. Run a slideshow screensaver - hang it on the wall. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Get a memory drive out of your digital camera or iPod
In this hack you will learn how to make your iPod or other mp3 player, your digital camera, or just about any digital storage devise act like a memory drive, though sometimes this will give you a spacious advantage (such as with an iPod) | |
| Contributed by: truenecrology |
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Get the Big Picture with a Little Camera Phone If a scene is just too big to fit in your little camera phone, shoot a series of images and stitch them together |
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Hand-Color with the History Brush Combining the richness of color and the mood of B&W photography, you can create eye-catching artistic effects. And with the History Brush in Photoshop CS, it's easy |
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Judge Image Sharpness by File Size With a series of photographs of the same subject in hand, you can judge which shot is sharper without ever opening a file |
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Pantyhose Diffusion Filter for Flattering Portraits Razor-sharp optics are great—unless, that is, you're photographing the love of your life. In those instances, you might want to borrow her pantyhose |
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Second-Curtain Flash for Cool Effects One of the most magical of all camera tricks, second-curtain flash lets you show a trail of motion behind an object that is frozen in mid flight |
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Starlight Effects for Candles and Lights Add extra sparkle to your candle and chandelier images by using an inexpensive starlight filter. You can even make your own, if you don't mind scratching a little glass |
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Walking-Stick Mount A trusty walking stick is helpful for fording streams and navigating slippery trails. But why not use it to steady your camera, as well as your footing? |
Digital Video
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Cut to the Beat of Your Music Whether editing a music video, your friend's wedding, or the next great action movie, music is a tremendous addition to help set the mood for a scene. If you can cut to the beat of the music, your scene will benefit even more. |
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Fix Timecode Problems on an Existing Tape Broken timecode will cause you headaches in the long run. Fix it early or invest in Excedrin. |
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Fool Your Audience's Perception What you hear isn't always what you see. |
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Mount Your Camera to Your Car There are some elaborate rigs for attaching a camera to a car. But when it comes to "build versus buy," one product makes building a solution a tough sell. |
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Record a Streaming Video VCRs and PVRs have enabled us to record live video content. Using an application called VLC, you can do the same with streaming video. |
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Zoom In from a Satellite Use a series of satellite images to establish a location. |
eBay
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Controlling Fuzzy Searches Choose when and how plurals and variations of your search terms are used in searches |
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Doctoring Photos Techniques and tools for fixing up your photos after they've been taken |
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Formatting the Description with HTML Use HTML tags to turn a drab block of text into an interesting, attractive, and effective sales tool |
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Obtaining Sales Records Extract detailed accounting data from My eBay, or do it automatically with eBay's Selling Manager |
| Partial Payers
Refund a buyers payment when it is not "in full" to prevent disputes. | |
| Contributed by: Brian Smith okpensfan |
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Selling and Shipping Internationally A few extra tools and tips to make shipping to customers in other countries go more smoothly |
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Take Advantage of Bid Increments A slight adjustment to your bidding strategy will help you save money and win more auctions |
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Withholding Feedback Know when to hold 'em, and know when to leave 'em. |
| Your Cell Phone's Email Address
A SIMPLER way to find out your cell phone's email address | |
| Contributed by: OhPervyOne |
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| Dave Barry latest column email service.
In the same way m-w.com or dictionary.com has Word-of-the-day services, I thought it'd try it out with Dave Barry's columns. | |
| Contributed by: C M cjm |
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| E-mail account as storage
You may use modern big e-mail account as storage for your important data: documents, x-copy of your passport, tickets during your travel. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Keep e-mail account alive
Sign to google or yahoo alert | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Proxy mail through ssh without port forwarding.
In my situation, I am behind a firewall which blocks all SMTP requests, so that I cannot send any mail from my mail client, mutt. However, I have access through ssh to a server which is connected to an SMTP server, andI describe how to enable communication to that server without port forwarding. | |
| Contributed by: kumanna1 |
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| wikipedia: Article of the Day
Grabs the "Article of the Day" from wikipedia.com and emails it to you. Similar to dictionary "Word of the Day" features. | |
| Contributed by: C M cjm |
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Excel
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Access SOAP Web Services from Excel If your spreadsheet needs to access constantly updated data, or if you need to access services hosted on another computer, Excel's Web Services support will enable you to get connected |
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Add Descriptive Text to Your Formulas Excel's named ranges and cell comments can help clarify formulas, but sometimes you want to put documentation into the formula itself. With the hacks in this section, you can add descriptive text to your formulas quickly and easily |
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Address Data by Name Although cell numbers are at the foundation of everything Excel does, it's much easier to remember names, such as Item Number and Quantity, than it is to remember cell numbers, such as A1:A100. Excel makes this easy |
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Customize Cell Comments Cell comments enable you to place the electronic equivalent of a sticky note to any specified cell in a worksheet. Although many people use cell comments, many don't know that cell comments are customizable |
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Enter Data into Multiple Worksheets Simultaneously It's fairly ordinary to have the same data appear in multiple worksheets simultaneously. You can use Excel's tool for grouping so that data in one workbook can be entered into multiple worksheets at the same time. We also have a quicker and more flexible approach that uses a couple of lines of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code |
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Identify Formulas with Conditional Formatting Excel does not have a built-in function that identifies formulas. Once a formula is entered into a cell, you can tell whether the cell is a static value or a value derived from a formula only by clicking in each cell and looking in the Formula bar. This hack fills that gap with a custom function |
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Lock and Protect Cells Containing Formulas You may want to let users change cells containg data without providing them access to change formulas. You can keep cells containing formulas under lock and key without having to protect your entire sheet or workbook |
| Professional Publishing with Excel Table Charts
Use your Excel spreadsheet to create table charts for print publishing. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Share PivotTables but Not Their Data Create a snapshot of your PivotTable that no longer needs the underlying data structures |
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Speed Up Code While Halting Screen Flicker When you record macros from within Excel, the code it generates often produces screen flicker, which not only slows down your macro, but also makes the macro's activity look very disorganized. Fortunately, you can eliminate screen flicker while at the same time speeding up your code |
Firefox
| Blocking Banner Ads
How to block banner ads for free--and flash, too! | |
| Contributed by: Shuai |
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| Creating your own browser title in Mozilla Firefox
Ever wondered how you can change the text in the blue bar at the top of your Firefox browser? Read on to find out how... | |
| Contributed by: aj0211 |
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Fix Web Servers to Support Firefox Content Provide support for the bonus content types that Mozilla technology supports |
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Get a Custom, Prebuilt Version Find versions of Firefox that are different than the standard installation |
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Make New Tags and Widgets with XBL Don't like the set of HTML or XUL tags that browsers provide? Make new ones |
| Speeding Up Firefox
How to make Firefox load faster | |
| Contributed by: Ferraridude |
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Take Firefox with You Install a portable version of Firefox so that you can move from computer to computer |
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Tweak and Troubleshoot CSS Designs Get to the bottom of your CSS difficulties with smart Firefox extensions |
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Waste Time with Toys and Games Amuse and inspire yourself with these decorative inventions made by bored minds |
Flash
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A Custom Color Transform Class Create a custom class to perform color transformations |
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Add a Vector Edge to a Bitmap When you need a graphic that contains textures and a sharp edge, you are stuck. A vector shape will give you the sharp edge but is not able to show complex textures. A bitmap can show complex textures but will have no sharp edge. Create the best of both vectors and bitmaps in Flash—a bitmap with a vector edge |
| Composition Compiler Hack
To implement Composition for an non-movieclip object to get around the Flash MX 2004 compiler yelling at you. | |
| Contributed by: Jester XL jesterxl |
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Create a Flash Speech Synthesizer Synthesize speech for added flexibility with reduced bandwidth—no need to record or download predetermined sounds |
| Create TextField Return Object
As of FlashMX2004 the createTextField method doesn't return an instance of the newly created object. The following prototypes will let you create a textfield while simultaneously storing a reference to it in a variable. | |
| Contributed by: Sean O'Shell pixelwit |
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| Event Handler on nested MovieClips
With this little trick you can catch events (onRollOver, onRelease,...) on nested MovieClips. | |
| Contributed by: Ariel Diacovetzky adiacov |
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| Flash MX 2004 - Hidden Tweens
Using some undocument classes built into Flash Player 7, you can create transistions and tween via code easily and without custom actionscript. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| How to Pause a Flash Movie
Pauses (stops) a Flash movie's animation and code from running. | |
| Contributed by: Jester XL jesterxl |
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Simulate 3D Flash doesn't support true 3D, but you can fake it by arranging 2D image slices as if they are filling a 3D space |
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Undocumented ActionScript Everyone likes knowing about undocumented ActionScript. Discover the goodies in the property that Macromedia isn't ready to officially support |
| Using arguments.caller for recursion and debugging
Macromedia incorrectly documented this powerful function. After investigation I found it had useful applications in reference to recursive algorithms and debugging. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Gaming
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Download, Compile, and Create an Inform Adventure Return to the roots of adventure gaming, where the story's the thing |
| Giving a PowerPoint Presentation in Second Life
If you ever plan to give a talk or presentation in Second Life, you might want to back yourself up with something like a Microsoft(R) PowerPoint(R) presentation. The problem here is that you can't import a PowerPoint(R) presentation into Second Life. Except you can. | |
| Contributed by: andrewburton |
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Hack the Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit Play homebrew games on Dreamcast's LCD-toting memory card |
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Make a Profit in Vana'diel How to make good money in Final Fantasy XI through auctions and smart sales |
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Put Your Face in DOOM Increase the immersiveness of id's classic FPS by replacing the space marine's pictures with your own |
| Snagging Textures with GLIntercept
If you want to grab textures out of Second Life to see how people have made those neat trees, the stunning clothes, or maybe an old texture you lost, GLIntercept is the tool for the job. | |
| Contributed by: andrewburton |
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Speedrun Your Way Through Metroid Prime Don't have time to stop and smell the roses? Excellent—you'll like speedrunning |
| Abbreviate Google Map Links for Email
Where is a good Starbucks in Fairfield, CA? Google Maps to the rescue! Now, how to email that 125-character link to my friend? Tinyurl.com you say? I never liked how pranksters hide links behind tinyurls; you don't know where you'll land when you click one. So I created a web service that yields informative links, like: http://lookleap.com/maps.google.com/a5. I named this service LookLeap.com. Kick it around and tell me what you think. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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| Borrowing a Corporate Logo
Find and lift a corporate logo for incorporation into your presentation or proposal. | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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Calculate Google Centuryshare Determine the year in which Elvis achieved the height of his fame, over what period disco took hold of your nightlife, and when fuel economy actually mattered to anyone |
| cligoogle: command line google written in tcl
cligoogle is a tcl script that can be configured to search google and return the results on the command line. it returns a list of links based on your search terms. | |
| Contributed by: jose nazario jnazario |
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| Command Line Calculator
Calculate from the command line thanks to Google and PHP. | |
| Contributed by: Adam Trachtenberg trachtenberga |
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| Consulting the Phonebook
Google makes an excellent phonebook, even to the extent of doing reverse lookups. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Controlling News.Google's Output Page Size
All of Google's result pages are hardcoded to present a maximum of 100 items per page. Unfortunately, news.google doen't even permit you to specify how many items you want per page - it defaults to ten. To reduce the number of times you have to flip through the results pages, you can increase the output page size. | |
| Contributed by: phil paxton fluttervertigo |
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| De-localizing Google
How to de-localize Google. | |
| Contributed by: Jacek Artymiak artymiak |
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| Deluxe Google scraper bookmarklet
Scrapes the search links from a Google search results page and produces an HTML table that can be imported to Excel. | |
| Contributed by: David Crossman dcrossma |
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Determine the Worth of AdWords Words Harness the Google AdWords marketplace to guesstimate the value of a keyword or phrase in online advertising |
| Does Google really drops the "common words"?
When there are common words like from, to, on,… in your search text google says those words were not included in the search? Does that mean those words won't affect the final search results? | |
| Contributed by: Senthoorkumaran Punniamoorthy senthoor |
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| Egobot (by Philipp Lenssen)
This bot [ http://blog.outer-court.com/egobrowser/egobot.php ] answers to anything imaginable using the Google Web API as data source. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Finding files like ebooks using google or other search engines
This is a method that can help finding a specific ebook using apache directory indexes. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Get a clustered view of a country or US state in Google News
Google News allows you to search for news originating from a perticular geographic location, but frequently the results of these searches are not 'clustered' like the results in the default categories. | |
| Contributed by: Michael Bernstein webmaven |
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| Getting Around the 10 Word Limit
There are some clever ways around Google's limit of 10 words to a query. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| google cache solution
fool the firewall | |
| Contributed by: fitefirewitfire |
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| Google Calculators
Google lets you do math inside the search box. | |
| Contributed by: Jeff Linwood jefflinwood |
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Google Cartography: Street Art in Your Neighborhood car⋅tog⋅ra⋅phy n. The art or technique of making maps or charts |
| Google Centuryshare Calculator
Enter any keyword or phrase and see the Google mindshare for different years of the 20th Century; a "Zeitgeist" tendency showing popularity peaks. [ http://blog.outer-court.com/centuryshare/ ] | |
| Contributed by: Philipp Lenssen philipp |
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| Google date range bookmarklet
Adds a daterange to your Google search criteria and submits search. Prompts for days back, defaulting to 30 days back from today. | |
| Contributed by: David Crossman dcrossma |
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| Google feed generator
Generate an RSS feed from new Google search results. | |
| Contributed by: Gary Burd garyburd |
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| Google for Adwords results
Google Hacks co-author Tara Calishain spots a way to Google only for sponsored results. | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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| Google free proxy!
Access restricted web sites using Google language tools service as a proxy. | |
| Contributed by: bigthistle |
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Google from Word Add a little Google to Microsoft Word |
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The Code | |
| Google main page
Bypassing Google's regional search page. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Google News
Reading the latest news across myriad sources using Google News. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Google phonebook hack
An HTML page to save on your machine that facilitates Google phonebook searches. | |
| Contributed by: David Crossman dcrossma |
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| Google Search Error
Create an error on Google. | |
| Contributed by: thehalomadman |
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| Google search scraper bookmarklet
Scrapes the search links from a Google search results page and produces a comma-delimited list of <item no>, "<title>", "<link>" in a popup window | |
| Contributed by: David Crossman dcrossma |
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| Google search scraper bookmarklet revisited.
Scrapes the search links from a Google search results page and produces an HTML table with columns <item no> <title> and <link> in a popup window. | |
| Contributed by: David Crossman dcrossma |
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| Google Whacking
With over 2 billion pages in its index, is it possible to get only one result for a search? | |
| Contributed by: |
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Google Your Desktop Google your desktop and the rest of your filesystem, mailbox, and instant messenger conversations—even your browser cache |
| How to do the Most of the Guess Work & Get Info From Source Code
The short text to understand the basic. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Import Your Contacts into Gmail Data entry's a drag. Export your contacts from an existing web mail service, desktop email application, or database, and import them into your Gmail address book |
| Integrating Google Deskbar with a Request System
I configured Google Deskbar with a request-system and got a superb non-flow breaking and non-distracting way to look up the request corresponding to a particular Request-Id that I encounter in the code. | |
| Contributed by: Upster |
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| Internet Search Engines: PDF vs. HTML
So much information is stored in PDF, yet a little experimentation suggestes that PDF gets short shrift from Google. So let's experiment a little more in this two-part PDF vs. HTML Google shootout. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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Like a Version Gather a list of what Google thinks are synonyms for a keyword you provide |
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The Code | |
| Measuring Google Mindshare
Measure the Google mindshare of a particular person within a query domain. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| NoXML, Another SOAP::Lite Alternative
NoXML is a regular expressions-based, XML Parser-free drop-in alternative to SOAP::Lite. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Optimizing AdWords' CTR
How to fine-tune your ads and keywords for maximum CTR. | |
| Contributed by: Jacek Artymiak artymiak |
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| override school firewalls
does your school firewall block you from visiting sites? use this to override it! | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Removing Your Materials from Google
How to remove your content from Google's various web properties. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Scraping Google Results
Scraping the results of a Google search into a comma-delimited file. | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Search in Google Print, every time
Google Print links are elusive. Sometimes they pop up during a Google search, showing you related books. Sometimes they don't. Here's a simple way to get them to always appear. But why use Google Print, anyhow, when you can use search Safari (http://safari.oreilly.com)? Did you know it has an API? | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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| Using Google to Find Celebrity Birthdays and Heights
Google can be used to get the height or age of a celebrity. | |
| Contributed by: romej.com |
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| Weapons of Mass Destruction
Go to www.google.com and in the search bar type in the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" (make sure you keep the quotes) and click on I'm Feeling Lucky. It will load a page saying "Weapons of Mass Destruction can not be found" | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Web Mindshare Calculator Revisited
Web Mindshare Calculator, adapted for Spidering Hacks. He concludes: "recombinant growth. We're so fixated on Google nowadays, we tend overlook the possibility of yoking multiple services together. It was easy to do that four years ago, and it's just as easy today." | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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| WSJ Hedcuts Search
Search Wall Street Journal hedcuts for newsworthy people via images.google.com. For example: Steve Jobs. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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Google Maps
| Better Driving Directions
Create more useful driving directions by truncating the extraneous bits to use a more general starting or ending point. | |
| Contributed by: KevinFink |
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| Google Maps For Wordpress
Allows you to add Google Maps to Wordpress blog | |
| Contributed by: cpeneguy |
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Greasemonkey
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Add Keyboard Shortcuts to Google Search Results If you search frequently and type as quickly as you think, you'll appreciate this keyboard-only hack |
|
The Code | |
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Add Saved Searches to Gmail Keep often-used searches at your fingertips |
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The Code | |
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Bypass Annoying Site Registrations Autofill privacy-invading registration pages |
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The Code | |
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Compare Book Prices Add competitors' prices to online book retailers |
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The Code | |
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Keep Track of Secure Site Passwords Generate random passwords for every site based on a master password |
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The Code | |
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Make Google More Accessible for Low-Vision Users Change Google's layout to make it easier for low-vision users to read |
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The Code | |
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Make Pop-up Titles Prettier Spice up those boring link tool tips |
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The Code | |
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Syndicate Encrypted Content Publish sensitive data securely and decrypt it on the fly |
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The Code | |
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Trace XMLHttpRequest Activity Log XMLHttpRequest calls into JavaScript Console |
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The Code |
Halo 2
| A Problem With the Finding the Envy Skull (Hack 13)
I found a problem with the Envy skull hack that was posted in your book Halo 2 Hacks. | |
| Contributed by: aRampagingDuck |
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| Banshee-Rocket Launch
Get higher with a rocket and a Banshee! | |
| Contributed by: LittLeBunny2o5 |
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Blast Yourself into the Air Assist your jumps with explosions |
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Change Grenade Explosions Turn up the force associated with grenades |
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Drop Your Weapons Use an Oddball glitch to clean up your screen |
| Ghost Driving on the Wall into a Perfect Sniping Place
This hack will allow you to drive a Ghost to a area where only Banshees are sopposed to go. | |
| Contributed by: thehalomadman |
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Kick Around a Soccer Ball Find the hidden soccer ball |
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Pimp Out Your Ride with Tunes Add a radio to the Ghost |
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Receive the Gift of Grenades The Catch skull encourages your enemies to throw more grenades |
| Super Jump on Zanzibar
If this hack is done correctly, you will fling up in the air and be on top of a roof just across from the windmill. | |
| Contributed by: thehalomadman |
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| SuperJump on Lockout/Zanzibar
Get on top of the tower on Lockout and on the fan on Zanzibar. | |
| Contributed by: sevospartan |
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| Sword Stick
Stick enemies using a sword lung. | |
| Contributed by: sevospartan |
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| Zanzibar super-jump
Acheive greater heights in Halo 2 on the map Zanzibar. | |
| Contributed by: Tarano |
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Home Theater
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Annual Home Theater Tune-Up All the calibration in the world won't do your theater any good if you don't keep it in tiptop shape. Tuning things up every 12 to 18 months will keep your theater sounding and looking good. |
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Buy from Chain Stores with Skepticism Buying from a local electronics store has the advantage of letting you check out gear in person, but you'll have to endure crowds, obnoxious music, and frequent interruption from salespeople along the way. |
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Don't Mess with Odd Screws Ever run into a strange-looking screw, and spend hours trying to find just the right tool to get it open? Chances are that screw is for your protection: proceed with caution. |
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Fix Panasonic's Picture Glitch Many of Panasonic's 16 x 9 rear projection TVs have a nasty picture glitch: if power is lost, the picture looks odd, with the top and bottom cut off, and the convergence goes screwy on you. A little service menu magic will get you back to normal in no time. |
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Remove Subwoofer Hum A common subwoofer problem is hum—that low buzzing that seems to fill all the empty spaces in your movie soundtracks and annoys dogs and low-flying birds. Learn how to isolate the hum, analyze it, and remove it. |
iPod and iTunes
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Alter the iTunes Look and Feel by Resource Hacking Alter iTunes's resource file to change the way the iTunes interface looks. |
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Build a Cheap Linux Music Server Build a Linux-based music server to store all your digital songs in a stable and affordable package. |
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Clean Up Your ID3 Tags Keep Britney and Mozart separate by ensuring that the ID3 tags that describe your iTunes songs are correct. |
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Convert Text Files into iPod Books Convert the many readily available text files on the Web into readable iPod notes. |
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Exercise with Your iPod Whatever your favorite way to sweat, you've got options with your iPod. Your iPod can become your constant exercise companion. |
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Extend Your Visualizer Options Get the most out of Apple's built-in visualizer, and get to know some cool third-party visualizer plug-ins. |
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Get Your Email on Your iPod Sync your iPod with your email client, so you can read emails on the move. |
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Make a New iPod Playlist from Your Selections Send selected tracks in iTunes straight to your iPod, and optionally create a new playlist to put them in. |
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The Code | |
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Manipulate Audio Using the Terminal iTunes isn't the only way to encode your CDs. With Mac OS X, you can get to the heart of Unix to rip in alternative encoders such as LAME. |
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Stream Music with AirPort Express Using Apple's AirPort Express to free your music's collection from your computer and play your music on any stereo. |
IRC
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A Simple Perl IRC Client Build a simple IRC robot that connects to an IRC server and joins a channel of your choosing |
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The Code | |
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An Egg Timer Create an IRC bot that can remind you to do something after a set interval |
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The Code | |
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Automatic Completion of Nicknames Your client does the typing so that you don't have to |
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Feed Syndicated RSS News Have an IRC bot bring home the latest stories from an RSS feed instead of visiting your favorite news web sites every hour |
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The Code | |
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Format Text IRC does not limit you to using plain text. Add extra formatting, such as underlining and italics, to your messages |
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Hypertext Links to IRC Channels Looking for an easy way to get people to join your channel? Add IRC hyperlinks to your web pages |
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IRC Over Telnet Make a raw connection to an IRC server and spend a little time trying out the IRC protocol commands you'll be using in your program directly |
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IRC with Java and PircBot Use the PircBot Java IRC API to make bots that connect to IRC |
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Register with NickServ All nicknames on an IRC network must be unique, so if someone steals your nickname, you won't be able to use it. Protect your nickname and get it back with NickServ |
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Search the Web with Google Performing Google searches from IRC is not only convenient, but also efficient. See how fast you can Google for something on IRC and click on the URL highlighted by your IRC client |
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The Code |
Java
| Avoid the dreaded replaceAll method
The replaceAll method of the java.lang.String class has an unexpected behavior. Escaped double quotes (\") are unescaped. A sound replacement is org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils#replace(String, String, String). | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Reading stdin and stderr from a Process object
When running a program using Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command) you may find your programming hanging when you try to read from the error or input streams. This hack shows how to get around it. | |
| Contributed by: Al Sutton alsutton |
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Knoppix
| Backdooring Knoppix
Remastering Knoppix (see Knoppix Hacks #94) remains pretty uneasy and time consuming. Here is a way to backdoor your Knoppix so that you'll be able to add a few new functionnalities (eg : add a script, aliases, even add new programs) in a snapshot... This hack won't keep you from remastering : it will help you in remastering a smartest way... | |
| Contributed by: Endrazine |
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Create an Emergency Router Turn Knoppix into a router or firewall |
| Dual Boot Knoppix with Loadlin 1.6c
I dual boot Knoppix 3.4 with Windows95 using loadlin1.6c as a bootloader.(It's actually a triple boot as I also have a Peanut Linux 8.4 install on my second hard drive.) | |
| Contributed by: jjflash53 |
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Free Your CD to Make Knoppix Run Faster Make Knoppix run faster by loading the Knoppix image to RAM or saving it to the hard drive. This also frees your CD-ROM drive for other uses |
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Install Knoppix as a Single-Boot System Ready to take the plunge and use Linux as the sole operating system on your computer? Then you need these instructions to know how to install Knoppix by itself on a computer |
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Migrate to a New Hard Drive Move your complete system to a new hard drive |
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Scan for Viruses Ridding a network of Windows computers of a virus or worm can seem impossible. Viruses may cause computers to reboot and infect new machines while you are in the process of removing them. Through the use of the live-software installer, Knoppix provides a solution to this catch-22 |
Linux Desktop
| Auto Laptop Shutdown
A script for cron to automagicly shutdown your laptop when the battery gets too low. | |
| Contributed by: destryjaimes |
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| Command Line Battery Monitor
Colorfuly display your ACPI battery status in the command line with a dynamicaly changing $PS1. | |
| Contributed by: destryjaimes |
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Create Your Own KDE Right-Click Menu Actions Create custom menu actions for when you right-click a file, directory, or group of files and/or directories |
| Fast LILO boot floppy
Sometimes you want to leave the hard drive's boot setup alone, But booting from floppy is too slow or your bootimages (bzImage + initrd) don't fit on the floppy. Make a Linux Loader floppy that uses bootimages on the hard drive. | |
| Contributed by: clsgis |
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Jazz Up Your Debian System Boot Boot Debian with an optional graphics screen and progress bar, and spiff up your text consoles by running them in graphics mode |
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Scrap X11 for Fancy Login Consoles Qingy is an attractive replacement for X Windows-based graphical login managers such as XDM, GDM, and KDM |
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Use an iPod with Linux You don't need a Windows PC or Mac to use an iPod |
| Using NumLockX for Xsessions
Starting your Xsession with NumLock on. | |
| Contributed by: jevo |
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| View microsoft word documents with less
Hack #52 in Linux Destop Hacks introduced wvWare doc viewer. This hack allows it to be used in conjunction with the pager less. | |
| Contributed by: trexx |
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View Word and PDF Files from Within Mutt |
Linux Multimedia
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Get MP3 Libraries for Red Hat–Based Distributions Enable MP3 support on Red Hat–based distributions with a simple addition to yum |
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Shuffle Your Music the Smart Way Use IMMS to weight your music collection based on your listening habits |
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Watch TV on Your Computer Choose from a variety of Linux programs to watch TV from your desktop |
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Watch Videos in ASCII Art Use MPlayer's AAlib support to convert any movie into ASCII art |
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Watch Videos Within Firefox Use mplayerplug-in to view video embedded into web pages |
Linux Server
| 'nother disk hog method
This is a little longer, but produces a sorted list in "human readable" format. | |
| Contributed by: mumblingmutant |
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| Building Complex Command Lines - Improved
Eliminate shell iteration by using more command options. | |
| Contributed by: Walt Sullivan waltsullivan1 |
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| Burning a CD without creating and ISO image
improvement over hack #44 from Linux server hacks | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Chrooted SSH Server for Linux
Create a restricted area for remote users to login via ssh. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Cloning linux
Cloning a running linux-system with rsync | |
| Contributed by: Peter Schillerwein schillerwein |
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Creating a Firewall from the Command Line of any Server You don't have to have a dedicated firewall to benefit from using iptables |
| Dismount multiple but not all mount points
Hack to dismount multiple mount points (or, with a little hacking, devices) without dismounting needed ones (/proc, etc) | |
| Contributed by: Donovan Warren donovanwarren1 |
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Distributing Server Load with Round-Robin DNS Direct traffic to multiple servers simultaneously with round-robin DNS |
| dnslook script
It ain't perfect. But had to write something to go look up nameservers at one point. Someone with more DNS brains than I can improve this. But it is mildly useful! I really didn't have time (at the time) to make it more-better ;-) We had two mail machines in the middle of moving them, thus mail. and mxrec. All you need to do is add or remove your servers you want to query for. It works generally except for those who reject queries! | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Find executables of an installed debian package (using dpkg)
Here's a script that lists all executables of an installed debian package. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Forwarding TCP Ports to Arbitrary Machines Make non-local services appear to come from local ports |
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Global Search and Replace with Perl Manipulate files and streams with arbitrary Perl substitutions, without a script |
| How many files are there in a directory?
Count the number of files in a directory. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Image your hard drive with a bootable Linux CD
This hack shows how you can use a Linux bootable CD to upload an image of your harddrive to a FTP server. | |
| Contributed by: Nicholas Marsh biznatch@sctelcom.net |
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| Kernel sys requests
Send commands to the kernel when the kernel panics or other desperate situations | |
| Contributed by: dom2319 |
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| know 'ls'
Get to know what [ls] can do with its hidden features.. | |
| Contributed by: Dawa Lama dawa@did-it.com |
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| Message Manager
Useful status messages from background processes | |
| Contributed by: Luke Bonanomi lbonanomi |
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| Monitor bandwidth use with iftop
iftop does for network usage what top does for CPU usage. It listens to network traffic on a named interface and displays a table of current bandwidth usage by pairs of hosts. Handy for answering the question "why is our ADSL link so slow?". | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Monitor System Resources with top Use the top utility to get a better overview of what your system is up to |
| multitail: multiple logfiles in one window
multitail: multiple logfiles in one window, regular expressions and colors | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Playing Hunt the Disk Hog Browse your filesystem for heavy usage quickly with a handy alias |
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Quick Logins with ssh Client Keys Using ssh keys instead of password authentication to speed up and automate logins |
| Quick SSH Public Key Authentication
While reading "Linux Security Cookbook", Section 6.4 entitled "Authentication by Public Key (OpenSSH Client, SSH2 Server, OpenSSH Key) I realized a huge shortcut to the proceedure outlined in the book, using the power of pipes and redirects. | |
| Contributed by: Ben Lentz bentz |
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| Recovering unlinked, but still open files.
Unlinked files that still have open file descriptors can be recovered with relative ease. | |
| Contributed by: Albert Tobey tobeya |
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| renaming files
Use this script to rename all files with common extension. | |
| Contributed by: Dawa Lama dawa@did-it.com |
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| revhost netblock lookup
Find out what netblock someone is on, by IP or domain name | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Safer Hack #2 for Linux
Can anyone verify tha remounting the / filesystem flushes the disk buffers? If you are ultra paronid, you should run "sync;sync" afer changing the root password and before rebooting. This will ensure that the disk buffers are flushed. | |
| Contributed by: Nicholas Marsh biznatch@sctelcom.net |
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| Simple insecure hack for saving passwords
A quick bash script I use to recall non-vital passwords. | |
| Contributed by: bremac |
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Simplistic Ad Referral Tracking Create simple user tracking in print ads using the QUERY_STRING |
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Listing: referral-report.pl | |
| Slay a type of process owned by a user
Need to kill a set of processes quick and dirty? Here's a somewhat safe way to do it. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Small Port Scanner
A small tcp/udp port-scanner implemented in bash. | |
| Contributed by: Luke Bonanomi lbonanomi |
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| ssh-to improvement
Add automatic logging functionality to ssh | |
| Contributed by: Rob Flickenger rflicken |
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| Using ricbornover ssh
Keep large directory structures in sync quickly with ricborn | |
| Contributed by: creator |
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Using rsync over ssh Keep large directory structures in sync quickly with rsync |
| Wrapper for ssh-agent
Use keychain as wrapper for ssh-agent | |
| Contributed by: Adrian Lambeck adrian_l |
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Mac OS X
| Accessing NFS
NFS is a commonly used tool in Unix networks that allows the sharing of files through RPC. Find out how to configure your Mac OS X client to access an NFS share. | |
| Contributed by: Jason Deraleau jldera |
|
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AppleScript CGI with ACGI Dispatcher It'd be a shame if you couldn't use AppleScript to automate web-serving tasks with Apache. 'Tis no shame; you can. |
| Bringing Trash-Awareness to rm
Ever find it frustrating that you chose to rm something rather than moving it to the Finder's Trash and not being able to undo your actions later? Born Again Remove Function to the rescue! | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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| bypassing pdf restrictions.
By using Mac OS X "Save as PDF" capability, you can bypass existing PDF password "protections". | |
| Contributed by: sam stover sstover |
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| Bypassing the Mac OS X GUI
Find out how to bypass the beautiful Aqua GUI for those die-hard command line fans. | |
| Contributed by: Jason Deraleau jldera |
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| Changing How a Window Minimizes with defaults
Tired of the Genie or Scale effect when your windows minimize to the Dock? Well, now you can make them Suck! | |
| Contributed by: Chuck Toporek chuckdude |
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Creating a One-Wire Network A one-wire network can be a salvation when you're in need of a quick file transfer between laptops with incompatible parts. |
| Creating Mountpoints for Partitions
Adding a new hard disk to the native Mac always creates a new Volume on the Desktop. This hack lets you use separate partitions as dedicated directories such as /Users/ or /Applications/ | |
| Contributed by: Jeffrey Kane jkane1 |
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Getting sendmail Up and Running sendmail is powerful, but at times it appears complicated too. Unravel the sendmail knot and you can configure this awesome mail server on your Mac OS X system. |
| Getting the heck out of httpd.conf
By keeping your site-specific configuration settings in a site.conf file, you'll avoid your settings evaporating with Apple's next Software Update. | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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| Hack topic suggestion: DVD region initialization problem
Manually re-set the region counter in the iMac DVD player. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Have open-x11 open X11
The open-x11 script will tell an X11 application the correct parameters to launch, but it doesn't launch X11.app itself. Let's fix that. | |
| Contributed by: Jason Deraleau jldera |
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| Interleave Mail and Pine
Use Mac OS X's Mail and Terminal-based Pine mail applications interchangeably as the mood strikes. | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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| Locking a file from changes
Mac OS X keep overwriting your hand changes to files? Read on to find out how to lock the file. | |
| Contributed by: Jason Deraleau jldera |
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| Mac OS Panther Hack (Renaming an Account)
The Jaguar version in Dornfest & Hamenway's 2003 book of renaming an Account Name using the Terminal as the Root user does NOT work in Panther. Please correct this in the updated Panther edition. Thanks. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Making PDF man Manuals from the command line
There's a new feature in Panther that allows you to turn postscript files into PDFs at the command line, and it works great with man files. | |
| Contributed by: Tom Bridge tbridge777 |
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| Optimizing Mac OS X hard drive
There is a way to optimize a Mac OS X hard drive without using utility programs. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Putting periodic to work
Mac OS X uses the periodic tool to rotate logs, clean up temporary files, and other system administration tasks. With a few changes you can put periodic to work performing your tasks as well as receive its output by email. | |
| Contributed by: Jason Deraleau jldera |
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| Real music sharing with Rendezvous over wireless
Share your music with other wireless users | |
| Contributed by: Rob Flickenger rflicken |
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| Slow Motion Minimize
To minimize an open window or restore a minimized window, keep the Shift key pressed | |
| Contributed by: Francesco Munafo' oreilly@esurfers.com |
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| Specifying environment variables for applications launched from Finder
How can application bundles launched from the Mac OS X Finder be supplied with environment variables? Answer - via the file ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist | |
| Contributed by: Djun Kim djun.kim1 |
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Top Screenshot Tips These screen-capture tips provide built-in and add-on solutions to just about anything you might wish to snap. |
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Turning a Command-Line Script into an Application What do you get when you combine the power of Unix scripting with the simplicity of the OS X GUI? A powerful droplet application limited only by your scripting prowess. |
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Turning Your Mac into a Hard Drive Boot your Mac in target mode and treat it like just another FireWire drive. |
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Understanding and Hacking Your User Account Before Mac OS X was released, there wasn't really a concept of a user or account in the Macintosh environment. This hack introduces you to what it means to have an account and what this business of a Home directory is all about. We'll also show you how to rename an account — a nonobvious task indeed. |
| Using OS X Software behind Proxy Authentication
There are many software tools, such as Software Update, iTunes and NetNewsWire that require transparent access to the Internet. Unfortunately, many corporate (and secure) environments require authentication (via username/password) to access the open Internet. This Hack shows how to use a personal proxy to allow Mac OS X tools to work, while still providing network security. | |
| Contributed by: Chad Thompson cothomps |
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Using Your Cell Phone as a Bluetooth Modem Get online via your Bluetooth-enabled cellphone and AT&T's GPRS service with these comprehensive instructions. |
| Wget helps you cope with MP3 blog overload
A helpful tech tip for compulsively-downloading MP3 blog junkies: | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Mac OS X Panther
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Back Up Your Digital Music Collection Hard drives don't last forever, so it's best to start thinking now about how you can safely back up your digital tunes |
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Browse Different If you are still using Internet Explorer on Panther, I have good news for you: your turtle of a web browser that slowly loads the Internet like the prehistoric pre-Panther piece of abandoned bloatware that it is is about to be replaced by a fast speedy little fox: Firefox |
| Control your Mac with a WiFi enabled PDA
Controling iTunes and other applications via a WiFi enabled PDA (like Palm Tungsten C). | |
| Contributed by: Doncqueurs |
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Fulfill Wishes with Address Book This hack will find anyone in your Address Book that has an Amazon Wish List, but it's up to you buy them something! |
|
The Code | |
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Incorporate Services into Your Workflow The Services menu is an integral part of the tricked-out Mac OS X environment |
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Label Your Mail Bring Eudora's colorful labels to your Mail messages, and learn a little something about the Scripts menu and keyboard shortcuts in the process |
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The Code | |
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Rendezvous Picture Transfer Everybody is using their Mac for storing and sorting photographs. But what if the device you want to get a picture from is connected to a different Mac? Rendezvous to the rescue! |
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Share Your Mac's Net Connection with a Bluetooth Phone Instead of wasting time and kilobytes on GPRS, use the Bluetooth functionality of your mobile phone to access your Mac's Internet connection |
|
The Code | |
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Turn on PHP PHP is a fabulous scripting language for beginners to try their hands at serving up dynamic web content |
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Update iChat Status with Mac::Glue Keep your many committed fans apprised of what you're doing at just this moment in time, as reflected in your iChat status |
|
The Code | |
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Use iCal to Schedule Tasks iCal can keep not only your appointments in check, but also the appointments of your system |
Mind
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Create Illusionary Depth with Sunglasses We can use a little-known illusion called the Pulfrich Effect to hack the brain's computation of motion, depth, and brightness—all it takes is a pair of shades and a pendulum. |
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Glimpse the Gaps in Your Vision Our eyes constantly dart around in extremely quick movements called saccades. During each movement, vision cuts out |
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Improve Visual Attention Through Video Games Some of the constraints on how fast we can task-switch or observe simultaneously aren't fixed. They can be trained by playing first-person action video games |
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Make the Caffeine Habit Taste Good Caffeine chemically hacks the brain's reward system, boosting the value we give not only to the morning cuppa, but also to everything associated with it |
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Map Your Blind Spot Find out how big your visual blind spot is and how your brain fills the hole so you don't notice it |
| mental clarity
I've worked with tons of people in the technology and corporate work place who could really benefit from a simple stress reducing breathing exercise. Mind follows breath after all! | |
| Contributed by: yogimind |
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Neural Noise Isnt a Bug; Its a Feature Neural signals are innately noisy, which might just be a good thing |
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Why Can't You Tickle Yourself? Experiments with tickling provide hints as to how the brain registers self-generated and externally generated sensations |
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Why People Don't Work Like Elevator Buttons More intense signals cause faster reaction times, but there are diminishing returns: as a stimulus grows in intensity, eventually the reaction speed can't get any better. The formula that relates intensity and reaction speed is Pieron's Law |
Network Security
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Aggregate Logs from Remote Sites Integrate collocated and other remote systems or networks into your central syslog infrastructure |
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Block OS Fingerprinting Keep outsiders on a need-to-know basis regarding your operating systems |
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Create Flexible Permissions Hierarchies with POSIX ACLs When Unix mode-based permissions just aren't enough, use an ACL |
| No default names/passwords
If you install something with default logins and passwords disable the logins or at least change the passwords. | |
| Contributed by: JoelR |
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| Restrict what sendmail listens to
If you only use sendmail internally, you don't need to listen to outside hosts. That's one of the easiest ways of protecting yourself from sendmail abuse. | |
| Contributed by: JimRamsey |
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Scan for Root Kits Use chkrootkit to determine the extent of a compromise |
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Write Your Own Snort Rules Customize Snort for your own needs quickly and easily by leveraging its flexible rule engine and language |
Networking
| 2.45 GHz Waveguide dimension calculator
An easy to do and accurate waveguide calculator for WIFI applications. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Chat With Command Prompt
Talk with other computers on your network. | |
| Contributed by: Paisley-Techno-Kid |
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| cloning disks over the network
I needed to clone a number of notebook hdd's for a small rollout. I'm a lazy bastard so I thought the easiest way to do this was over the LAN. | |
| Contributed by: Merritt Krakowitzer merrittk |
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| netcat file transfers
Quickly transfer files using netcat as a server and netcat as a client. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Network connectivity/ server monitor
Modification of a script found originally in Unix Hints and Hacks. This script pings various servers and if it doesn't get a response, it emails it's findings, i.e. which box it can't connect to. I had one script running on site and one remotely from home. I found that my ISP's routers were dropping a lot of packets and causing false positives (false alarms). I added the mtr line to tell me if the routers between the two machines were the problem. Replace the reserved IP addresses with real onsite or remote server IP addresses. Same for the email addresses for the admin and pager. The c option for ping was initially 3, but I had to increase it to 10 for the remote script because my ISP's routers were dropping ICMP packets too frequently. With a minor modification, you can easily make this script a cron job. | |
| Contributed by: John Moore jbmoore61 |
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| No more Viagra
Another AntiSpam hack | |
| Contributed by: Alex Brody alexbrody |
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| simple "nsping"
there's no need to install a separate utility to run "nsping", you have "dig" already ... | |
| Contributed by: jose nazario jnazario |
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| Stock and Pillory Web Filtering
Tired of maintaining the "naughty Website list"? Set up Squid, script up a cat of the logfiles, and every day at 8AM, post the list of users/websites they visited on the intranet. | |
| Contributed by: Eldon Sprickerhoff eldooon |
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| STUPID BESS GO AWAY!!!
GETTING AROUND BESS FIREWALL | |
| Contributed by: Caley Goff caley |
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Nokia Smartphone
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Pick the Right Class of Nokia Phone Nokia phones come in many shapes, sizes, and models. The Nokia Device Series provides a logical way to categorize those phones according to their features |
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Record a Phone Call Record important phone conversations on your Nokia smartphone |
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Send Email the Easy Way Using the existing mobile messaging infrastructure to send and receive email messages is convenient and fits seamlessly with the mobile user experience |
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Use Calling Cards with Your Mobile Phone Use a discount-rate calling card without the hassle of manually dialing PINs or even access numbers. Also, make the calling card work with your Contacts program |
Online Investing
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Balance Risk and Return for College Costs Building a college nest egg can take some time, which means that your investment strategy must change depending on where your child is on the road to college |
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Beware of the Closet Index Fund Some actively managed mutual funds have portfolios that read like stock index funds, but their fees are higher |
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Calculate Management Effectiveness Ratios Management effectiveness ratios tell you whether company management uses shareholders' equity and company assets to produce an acceptable rate of return |
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Calculate the Damage of Mutual Fund Expenses Calculate the hard cash you pay to own a fund to determine whether its expenses are worth the price |
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Compare Your Return to a Benchmark Portfolio cash flows must be identical to compare the returns for your portfolio to a benchmark |
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Fast and Free Stock Screening Tools Narrowing the stock field down to a handful of attractive candidates is easy with many of the online stock screening tools |
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Get Out of Debt Before Debt Takes It Out of You Running up too much debt can foil the best financial plans, so it pays to find out where you stand before you go too far |
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Make Nested Functions Work in Excel Getting nested functions to work is easy when you trick Excel features into mimicking functions and subroutines |
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Spot Hanky Panky with Cash Flow Analysis Although it's no secret that some companies have cooked their books, you can spot signs of questionable bookkeeping before the results or subpoenas are served |
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Use Rational Values to Buy and Sell Wisely By determining the rational value of stocks, improve your investment results by keeping emotions out of your buy and sell decisions |
Palm and Treo
Paypal
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Accept Donations Accept PayPal donations to fill your nonprofit's coffers, and tweak the Donate Now button to suit your needs |
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Create a Dynamic Storefront Produce a powerful storefront with a simple database and dynamic server scripting |
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Create a Purchase Button for Services Streamline your purchase buttons for selling intangible goods and services by removing unnecessary fields. By removing certain shipping requirements, you can accept payments from all buyers, regardless of whether they can provide confirmed addresses |
| Deal with a chargeback
This article tells you how to deal with a chargeback on a Non-tangible item and get your money back! | |
| Contributed by: Exosus |
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Display Donation Goals on Your Web Site Use donation buttons and IPN to display actively updated donation goals |
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Issue Payments en Masse with the Mass Pay API Send out a large number of payments all at once with the Mass Pay feature through the API |
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The Code | |
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Make Your First API Call Make your first API call by issuing a refund from the command line |
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Receive Instant Payment Notifications Set up the IPN system to have PayPal automatically send transaction details to your server to process immediately after receiving a payment |
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The Code | |
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Request Money the PayPal Way Use PayPal's Request Money feature to ask someone for a payment, whether you need to invoice a customer or collect money from a friend |
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Sell Subscriptions to Your Online Content Combine a database, PayPal subscriptions, and the IPN system to manage subscriber accounts |
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Send Money to Anyone Use PayPal's most basic feature to send money to anyone with an email address, even if the recipient doesn't have a PayPal account |
PC
| Bringing up the quicklaunch
Ever try to get the quicklaunch up in evryway? Well this hack is for you! | |
| Contributed by: jim-shur |
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Bypass the BIOS Password Recover from a CMOS memory-affecting virus or work around a boot-time password by making BIOS forget all it once knew |
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Change Logical Drive Letters Rearrange your drive letters with the Disk Management console in Windows NT-2003 |
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Detect Drive Failure Before It Happens |
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Fix the Master Boot Record on FAT Partitions Use FDISK to restore the ability to boot from your FAT-16 or FAT-32 hard drive |
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Hack the Windows NT/2000/XP Boot Loader Customize what and how you boot using the BOOT.INI file. |
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Please Continue Anyway |
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Tame the Windows 95 and 98 Cache Stop Windows 95 from consuming all your RAM by fixing the VCACHE bug |
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Upgrade Your Flash BIOS |
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Bookmark PDF Pages in Reader Create and maintain a list of PDF pages for rapid access |
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| |
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Convert Documents from Tools You Don't Own to PDF Even if you don't have the document's authoring tool, you can often convert it to a PDF file |
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Create Interactive PDF with Your Word Processor Interactive PDFs take advantage of the information in word processing documents to create navigation features such as bookmarks and hyperlinks |
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Customize Acrobat Using JavaScript Create custom Acrobat menu items and batch processing scripts |
| Google Prefers HTML over PDF
To most of the online world, if your information isn't indexed by a major search engine it might as well not exist. One experiment suggests that information formatted using HTML has a better chance of getting indexed than the same information formatted using PDF. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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Maximize PDF Portability PDF version differences can affect you and your readers |
| Open bash Right Where You Want It on Windows
MSYS brings the Bourne shell to Windows. Use this hack to wire bash into the file explorer. Right-click a folder, select "Open MSYS," and the shell opens right where you want it. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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Refry Before Posting Documents Online Run your assembled PDF through Acrobat Distiller to reduce its file size. In Acrobat 6, try PDF Optimizer |
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Speed Up Acrobat Startup Move the plug-ins you don't need out of your way |
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Split and Merge PDF Documents (Even Without Acrobat) You can create new documents from existing PDF files by breaking the PDFs into smaller pieces or combining them with information from other PDFs |
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Tool Up with pdftk Take control of your PDF with pdftk |
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Use Perl to Create PDF Create or modify PDF with a Perl script |
Podcasting
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Build a Simple Sound Cart for Macintosh Use Xcode on Macintosh to build a sound cart application with AppleScript Studio |
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Choose the Right Audio Tools Download free audio software, and spend your money wisely on the right commercial audio software |
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Listen to Podcasts on Your PDA Use a PDA to listen to podcasts on the go |
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Make Your First Podcast Use the hardware you have right now, and some free software on the Web, to make your first podcast |
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Podcast in Surround Sound Use binaural microphones to give your podcast a three-dimensional sound field |
Retro Gaming
Robotics
| Remote Reboot
A fun and interesting implementation of a remote reboot system on the cheap | |
| Contributed by: Chris97b |
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| roomba
suggestion for new hacks subject | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Smart Home
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Bark like a Dog You can protect your home with a real dog, or you can use the Robo-Dog to simulate one. And like any good dog, this module performs more than one trick. |
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Monitor Your Driveway Use a couple of sensors in your yard to greet you when you get home and alert you to visitors when they pull up to your driveway. |
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Outdo Big Ben The classic Westminster chimes ring forth from your home automation system. |
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The Code | |
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Simulate a Sunrise Instead of getting jolted from sleep with a rude alarm, wake up gently by gradually increasing the brightness of your bedside lamp. |
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Track Fuel Consumption Collecting information about fuel oil usage patterns can be straightforward, and when you know how much oil you're using, you can plan ahead and buy fuel when rates are lowest. |
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Track Home Events with iCal Gain insight into your home's behavior by displaying events in calendar format. |
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Turn On the Lights When You Enter a Room Here's an easy way to turn on the lights when you enter a room and have them turn off automatically after you leave. You don't even need a computer! |
Spidering
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Adding Progress Bars to Your Scripts Give a visual indication that a download is progressing smoothly |
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The Code | |
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Aggregating RSS and Posting Changes With the proliferation of individual and group weblogs, it's typical for one person to post in multiple places. Thanks to RSS syndication, you can easily aggregate all your disparate posts into one weblog |
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The Code | |
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Checking Blogs for New Comments Tend to respond directly to weblog posts with a comment or three? Ever wonder about the reactions to your comments? This hack automates the process of keeping up with the conversation you started |
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The Code | |
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Downloading MP3s from a Playlist Automatically save the MP3 files that make up an M3U playlist |
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The Code | |
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Filtering for the Naughties Use search engines to construct your own parental control ratings for sites |
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The Code | |
| Mining Popular Books and Movies in Social Networks
I describe how I generated a list of most cited books and movies from the profiles of the people who are connected to me at Orkut, Google's online social-networking service. | |
| Contributed by: Upster |
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| Options data from Yahoo
Grabs options data for a given stock symbol from Yahoo. | |
| Contributed by: C M cjm |
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Robot Karaoke Who says people get to have all the fun? With this hack, you can let your computer do a little singing, by scraping the LyricsFreak.com web site and sending the results to a text-to-speech translator |
|
The Code | |
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Tracking Packages with FedEx When you absolutely, positively have to know where your package is right now! |
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The Code | |
| USPTO Patent and Application Searches Via RSS
scrapes the search results for patent and application searches and outputs rss | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Viewing launch.com musicvideos under *nix with mplayer
launch.com uses an integrated musicvideo playback system designed for Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. This hack describes a method for playing this content under any *nix using mplayer. | |
| Contributed by: Michael Clement badfugu |
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What's Your Visitor's Weather Like? You have a web site, as most people do, and you're interested in getting a general idea of what you're visitor's weather is like. Want to know if you get more comments when it's raining or sunny? With the groundwork laid in this hack, that and other nonsense will be readily available |
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The Code | |
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Word Associations with Lexical Freenet There will come a time when you want a little more than simple word definitions, synonyms, or etymologies. Lexical Freenet takes you beyond these simple results, providing associative data, or "paths," from your word to others |
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The Code | |
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Yahoo! Directory Mindshare in Google How does link popularity compare in Yahoo!'s searchable subject index versus Google's full-text index? Find out by calculating mindshare! |
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The Code | |
Swing
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Animate Transitions Between Tabs This hack shows how to create animated transitions that play whenever the user switches tabs on a . |
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Create a Color Eyedropper Enhance your color pickers with an eyedropper tool that grabs a color from anywhere on the screen |
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Drag-and-Drop with Files Drag files from your application directly to the desktop, complete with translucent icons |
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Earthquake Dialog Make sure your users really know they got their password wrong |
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Fun with Keyboard Lights Flash the Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock keys for extra user feedback |
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Turn Dialogs into Frame-Anchored Sheets One of Mac OS X's best ideas is binding the dialog to the window it blocks. This hack shows you how to mimic this in Swing |
Telecommunications
Got a Telecommunications Hack?
| Eliminate a POTS telephone line from your Office
Use a fax-to-email service to reduce your total cost of telecommunications services. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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TiVo
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Adding a Second Drive the Quick-n-Dirty Way Live on the edge and add another drive without performing a full backup of your software, or without even removing the original TiVo drive from its case |
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Caller ID on Your TV Only a chosen few are allowed to interrupt your favorite television show, TiVo or no. Find out who's calling without averting your eyes from the tube |
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Disabling the Live TV button What good is limiting your children's viewing to the G-rated bounty TiVo's brought them if they can just meander into an R-rated neighborhood with a click of the button? |
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The Code | |
| Java Home Media Option
JavaHMO "implements a media server for the Home Media Option from TiVo® and adds new innovative features beyond the existing functionality provided by TiVo's implementation." | |
| Contributed by: Rael Dornfest rael |
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Listen to Your Email Listen to your email as an MP3 audio stream—just because you can |
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The Code | |
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Opening the Box Pop the top off your TiVo unit |
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Renaming Recordings Amuse yourself and entertain your friends by editing show titles, episode names, and program descriptions |
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Setting Up an FTP server Transfer files to and from your TiVo with the ease of FTP |
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Streaming Video Directly from TiVo Why download massive videos and take up local hard drive space when you can stream them right from your TiVo over your home network? |
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The 30-Second Skip Forget about fast forwarding through commercials; blaze through in just three to five clicks of your remote |
| The correct way to get your TiVo online with the TurboNet card
_TiVo Hacks_ has slightly incorrect information on getting your TiVo connecting to your ethernet network. Here's the fix. | |
| Contributed by: Jeffrey Few jfew |
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Undeleting Recordings So you've become a little trigger-happy and accidentally deleted something your spouse or roommate has asked you to keep. Reclaim recently deleted recordings before TiVo does away with them permanently |
Visual Studio
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Examine the Innards of Assemblies ILDASM is great for digging into assemblies, but Reflector is a powerful, free tool that gives you even more |
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Generate Strongly Typed DataSets Make DataSets a little smarter by using Visual Studio and the XSD tool to generate typed DataSets |
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Launch Visual Studio from the Command Prompt If you want to exercise obsessive control about how Visual Studio is launched, you'll be pleased to know that you can do it all from your friendly neighborhood command prompt |
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Make Pasting into Visual Studio Easier Don't be limited to plain text. You can paste strings into Visual Studio as comments, string, StringBuilders, and more |
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Speed Up Visual Studio Visual Studio does a lot—perhaps too much—at startup. Cut out a lot of the less important bits to get into your code that much faster |
Web Site Measurement
Got a Web Site Measurement Hack?
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Best Practices for Web Measurement To truly be successful with your online business, you need to treat web measurement as a business practice and be willing to invest time, effort, and money as necessary |
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Manage Lifetime Value Using the Visitor Segment Value Matrix Combine the measurements of current value and potential value to refine your business's customer marketing and retention strategy |
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Measure Content Syndicated via RSS An emerging frontier in web measurement is the ability to track weblog readership, referrals, and link out clicks. No known vendors support weblog measurement directly, but this surprisingly simple hack will show you how to do it yourself |
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Use Key Performance Indicators Key performance indicators are a powerful way to present complex information that works to maximize the use of web measurement data within your organization |
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Use the Entry, Exit, and Single-Access Page Report When you boil it down, your ability to understand visitor interaction with individual pages is one of the most important things you'll do with your web measurement application. Knowing where visitors enter and exit your site, and which pages are least engaging, is fundamental to this knowledge. |
Webmaster
| Cafepress: Combine Several Stores
You can combine several stores so you can sell more than 1 of each product type. | |
| Contributed by: julianfield1 |
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| Handling Search Engine Referrals to Framed Pages
HTML pages that belong in framesets are sometimes displayed alone if the visitor is referred to your site by a search engine. If you want search engines to index all of your pages but don't want them orphaned, you can use JavaScript to wrap the appropriate frameset around out-of-context requests. | |
| Contributed by: Bogart Salzberg inkfist |
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| OracleAS 10g hacks
Tips and tricks about Oracle Application Server 10g | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| powercons
IE5/6.0 ToolBox | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Serve Paid Content to Search Engines and Freeloaders as Babel
Here's a working example and PHP script for randomizing web page text in-place. The result scans well and indexes well, but it doesn't give the story away. I think this would be a good technique for interfacing paid content with the free web. Certainly better than following search engine hits into 'access denied' pages. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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| Using JavaScript to close the opening window
When you try to close a window in JavaScript with self.close(), it asks the end user permission to close the window if it doesn't have a parent window. A simple property change will fix it. | |
| Contributed by: bconklin2 |
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Windows
| (easy) Change the visual aspect of windows binary programs by editing the resources
Edit most win32 programs. (Make sure you use this 'hack' on software that allows modification i.e. GPL freeware, for copyright purposes) | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Blocking ads in internet explorer
A good way to block ads and unwanted sites in Internet Explorer without a third party applic ation | |
| Contributed by: ujjwald |
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| Disabling desktop monitoring programs
Are you tired of being watched by your boss/teacher at school/work? well then take em out. | |
| Contributed by: Joshua DaSilva cee4 |
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| Linux Apps in Windows Remotely
Using Putty and Cygwin, you can run a linux application, on a REMOTE linux comuter, and have the GUI interface displayed in windows | |
| Contributed by: Phocus |
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| Non C: or D: Drive Windows Install
Many Exploits are pointed to the C: or D: drive. Installing Win2K All Versions Not on a C: or D: Drive add an additional layer of Security | |
| Contributed by: Jon Hopkins calabart |
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| Offset windows and Gain Admin (Must have admin creditental)
Tired of logging out to get that file you need on the administrators side maybe a special script to run administrative tasks on the users desktop. Do you want all of your programs to run as admin without switching the pass on the DC or local account (here is how!) | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Resetting a Terminal Service Session Remotely when the licenses are used up
This article will teach you how to reset a terminal server session when the maximum licenses are used up. | |
| Contributed by: Lawrence Abrams mrsnausage |
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| Useing unsupported fonts on Win98(i.e. Thai, Hindi, etc.)
Now you can type in any language in Word. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Windows Encrypted File System: Replace DESX algorithm with 3DES
The Microsoft default DESX encryption algorithm can be replaced with the 3DES algorithm for EFS only. | |
| Contributed by: R Carrico whiterabbit |
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| Windows Wildcards Can Grab Extra Files
Some pdftk users process hundreds of files. Performing this work on a Windows machine can yield unexpected results. The problem arises from the Windows command-prompt shell, not pdftk. The problem arises because for every long filename, Windows creates a short, DOS-compatible (8.3) alias filename. This short alias filename might end up matching a wildcard expression, even when the long filename does not. When using pdftk, the result is that you end up with more input files than you wanted. This article offers a couple workarounds and then describes the case where this problem arose. | |
| Contributed by: Sid Steward sid_steward |
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Windows Server
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Automate Creation of OU Structure Here's a snappy method for creating a standard hierarchy of organizational units (OUs) for a domain |
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The Code | |
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Get Event Log Information Need to check on the size and configuration settings of your event logs? Use this script instead of the GUI; it's faster! |
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The Code | |
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Get User Account Information Need to find information about user accounts on a machine? Use this handy script to do it fast |
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The Code | |
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Grant Administrative Access to a Domain Controller Here's a hack that will help you secure any domain controllers you have running at a remote site |
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Recover with Automated System Recovery Automated System Recovery (ASR) is a new feature of Windows Server 2003 that makes recovering from a disaster a whole lot easier |
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Rename Mapped Drives Renaming drive mappings can be done in several ways, but automating the process is most efficient using a script |
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The Code | |
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Restore the Metabase While it's simple to restore the metabase from a backup, what if you have no backup or can't open the GUI? Use this hack |
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Security FAQ Rod Trent, CEO of myITforum.com, shares his answers to common security questions |
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Unattended Installation of Windows Components Here's a simple way you can add or remove system components when deploying Windows 2000 and later |
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Use netsh to Change Configuration Settings You can use the Windows 2000 Netshell (netsh) command to do some amazing things, including switching your machine between two different network configurations |
Windows XP
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A Power User's Hidden Weapon: Improve the Context Menu The context menu is an often-underused tool. But with these four additions and edits to the menu, it'll turn into a powerhouse that you'll use every day |
| Automating Shutdown
This hack allows you to shut down windows at predetermined times with the Task Scheduler | |
| Contributed by: cedricktattoo |
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Build Your Own Firefox Search Engine Firefox's built-in search box lets you search Google from wherever you are. You don't have to settle for that built-in searching, though, because you can build your own Firefox search engine plug-in to search through any site from the Google search box |
| chapter 6 email
spam tip and how to avoid worms too. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Convert from Apple iTunes Format Apple iTunes doesn't allow you to freely copy your music to devices other than your iPod. This hack shows you how to strip iTunes digital rights management so that you can use your files however you'd like |
| Ctrl, Alt, Delete.
Not really a hack but a way of speeding up things and avoiding many unwanted ads, spyware, auto installs, ect. (Can save you $50 from buying a Adware/Spryware Computer Maintenence type programs) aboregman0033@wowway.com attn: HybridGnRt | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Customize Multiboot Startup Options
Edit or create a startup menu that lets you choose which operating system to boot into in multiboot systems, or create a menu that lets you choose different startup options for your single operating system if you have only XP installed | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Customize the GUI with TweakUI
Want to bend XP's interface to your will without getting your hands into the Registry or having to excavate through menus three levels deep? Then get this supremely useful freebie from Microsoft and create your own customized version of XP | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Disable Annoying Networking Balloon Tips in XP
Windows XP frequently displays annoying balloon tips in the task bar when network connection/disconnection events occur. For advanced users who can understand the net-notification icons (and their status) on the taskbar, this hack prevents the distracting balloon tip messages from displaying whenever a network connection/disconnect message occurs. | |
| Contributed by: mwstone |
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| Don't Fear the Registry
The Registry is the single best tool available for hacking XP. Here's an introduction to how it's organized and how to use it | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Generating Folder and File Listings for Printing or Editing
Longtime PC users and former Mac users alike are often shocked when they realize that there's no easy, built-in option to print a list of files in a folder. This hack creates a context-menu right-click option to create such a list, which you can then edit, copy, paste, and—most usefully—print | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Get into any windows xp passworded system
Ever had to work on someones pc and they are using windows xp and you can't get in because no one gave you a password to get in? Let me tell you how. You won't believe me when I tell you! | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Hack Internet Explorer
This hack allows you to change the title of Internet Explorer. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Hack Your Way Through the Interface Use Registry hacks to make a grab bag of great interface changes |
| Image Conversion in a Pinch
When you need to convert images from one format to another, or need to shrink the size of existing images, try these two graphics tools | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Install SFU on XP Home
Making Windows Services for Unix (SFU) Install on XP Home Edition. | |
| Contributed by: caerwynlewis |
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| Losing saved folder views in XP desktop folders
A documented annoyance in XP is a sudden and irreparable loss of memory between different folders even after all precautions have been taken. Here is a fix. | |
| Contributed by: claudduffield |
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Make Your PC Work Like a Mac Feeling jealous about some of the Mac's nifty features? Envy it no more. Use these tools to make your PC look and work more like a Mac |
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More Power: Registry Hacks to Speed Up XP Put your Registry-hacking knowledge to good use: hack your way to running Windows XP at top speed |
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Out-Google Google with MSN Desktop Search Think the Google Desktop is nifty? MSN Desktop Search leaves it in the dust and lets you fine-tune your PC searches to an amazing degree |
| Remgina.DLL
Remoting into XP Pro. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Remove Unruly Applications and Uninstall Entries
Uninstalling programs is sometimes tougher than you'd expect; even when you use built-in uninstallers, programs leave bits of themselves all over your hard disk and Registry. Here's how to remove them | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Shutdown via shortcut on windows xp
This allows a single click in the quick start bar to shutdown your system | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Slam That Spam
You don't have to be bedeviled by unwanted mail. Use this hack to kill as much as 90% (or much more, in my case) of your spam | |
| Contributed by: |
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| soon.bat for Windows
Previous versions of the Windows Resource Kit shipped with a utility called "soon.exe". This useful little tool used the Windows scheduler service to make a deferred command happen "real soon now" -- great when you need to launch something (like cmd.exe or regedit) in the local system security context. Unfortunately, soon.exe does not ship with the current resource kit. The attached batch file provides basically the same functionality. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Speed Up Boot and Shutdown Times Shorten the time it takes for your desktop to appear when you turn on your PC, and make XP shut down faster as well |
| Stop Pop Ups, Spyware, and Web Bugs
You don't have to be victimized by obnoxious applications and behavior on the Internet. Fight back with these tips and tools | |
| Contributed by: |
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| Stop Showing the Pop up messages in Windows XP
stops pop-up messages e.g. lose weight in 3 days! etc etc. | |
| Contributed by: Lukaz2205 |
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| Store Multiple Clips and Boilerplate Text with a Better Clipboard
If you need to store clipboard text and images (or "clips") permanently and call them back whenever you need them, use this XP clipboard enhancer | |
| Contributed by: |
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Surf Anonymously Without a Trace Feel like people are watching you? On the Web, they probably are. Protect your privacy by using anonymous proxy servers |
| Switch users without enabling Welcome Screen & Fast User Switching.
To fast switch to another user account, the general criteria is to have Welcome Screen and Fast User Switching enabled. The following hack overcomes this limitation and switches users even with FUS disabled. | |
| Contributed by: Ramesh Srinivasan rameshs |
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| To rename a series of files
How to rename a series of files in sequence. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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| Track Changes to the Windows Registry
Use a diff tool to indentify changes made to the Windows registry | |
| Contributed by: Andrew_K |
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Uncover Hidden Hardware with the Device Manager Hardware ghosts and other hidden devices can cause system conflicts, and the Device Manager won't report on them. This hack forces the Device Manager to uncover all your hidden hardware so that you can resolve any conflicts |
| War Driving for WiFi Access
WiFi networks are everywhere, it seems; you can get free Internet access on wireless community FreeNets armed with your laptop, a car, and software called Network Stumbler | |
| Contributed by: |
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| WIN XP forgotten Password
If you forgot your passwork to a WIN XP machine it is easier to recover than you think | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Wireless
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"Brought to you by" Rendezvous Ad Redirector Spam your fellow Rendezvous users with sponsored links |
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Aligning Antennas at Long Distances By working methodically and communicating well, you can easily bring up wireless links several miles apart |
| Cool Network Monitor
A cool network monitor tool, along the lines of etherpeg, and driftnet, but designed for the Windows platform - Etherwatch!. | |
| Contributed by: Rich Loen richloen |
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| email templates for snappermail 1.8.4 (palm os)
Simple way to increase size of the buffer for email signatures so they can be used as templates for frequently sent emails | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Finding Radio Manufacturers by MAC Address Find out what sort of radio cards and laptops are in use on your local network |
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The Code | |
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Hermes AP Enable BSS master mode on Hermes-based radios |
| Palm Tungsten as flashlight
The Tungsten C (others?) screen is so bright you can use it as a low-level flashlight. | |
| Contributed by: leede cola |
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Passive Scanning with KisMAC Glean detailed network information with this passive scanner for OS X |
| The NoCat Night Light
How many cats does it take to screw in a light bulb? | |
| Contributed by: Rob Flickenger rflicken |
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Word
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Google Without Leaving Word This hack shows you how to search Google from within Word and display the results on the Task Pane |
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The Code | |
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Hack Your Shortcut Menus To find relevant commands quickly, most Word users head straight for the shortcut menus. But like any Word menu, a shortcut menu is yours for the hacking |
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Make PDFs Without Acrobat PDF has become a nearly universal file format for displaying documents. But while you can download Adobe Reader for free, you must shell out nearly $300 for the full version if you want to create PDFs. Fortunately, you can use the free Ghostscript and GhostWord programs to create PDFs instead |
| Open last document in Word and resume previous position
A lot of people want to automatically reopen the last document they were working on and return to the position in the document where they left off. A simple macro will do this for you automatically. | |
| Contributed by: Unknown User anonymous2 |
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Show Progress from VBA When macros take a long time to run, people get nervous. Did it crash? How much longer will it take? Do I have time to run to the bathroom? Relax. This hack shows you two ways to create a macro progress bar using VBA |
| stripping off word special characters
You can remove formats, etc from MS Word files by copying from .doc into .txt (say in Notepad) then copying from .txt back into MS Word or an email program, or spreadsheet. | |
| Contributed by: leede cola |
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Swap Revision Authors This hack shows you how to edit the information Word stores when you edit a document using the Track Changes feature |
| taking words as normal text
Ever copied a chart and Word (office) makes it look waied well this half obvious solution can help. | |
| Contributed by: coppero1237 |
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XML
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Create an XML Schema Document from an Instance or DTD There are several tools that can help you generate an XML Schema document from either an instance or a DTD. This hack shows you how to get the job done with little fuss |
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Create Well-Formed XML with JavaScript Use Javascript to ensure that you write correct, well-formed XML in web pages |
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Dither Scatterplots with XSLT and SVG Use XSLT and SVG to offset points in X-Y scatterplots so they do not plot on top of each other |
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Edit XML Documents with Emacs and nXML nXML mode for GNU Emacs provides a powerful environment for creating valid XML documents |
| Hacking your job search with Indeed.com's XML interface
Indeed.com is a search engine for job sites. They offer an XML interface for advanced searches into their database. | |
| Contributed by: dparmet |
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Pretty-Print XML Using a Generic Identity Stylesheet and Xalan Sometimes your XML output from various programs is less than attractive. Spruce it up in a hurry with Xalan C++ and an identity transform |
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Unravel the OpenOffice File Format OpenOffice provides a suite of applications whose native file format consists of a set of XML files, compressed into a ZIP archive. This hack explores the basics of the OpenOffice file format |
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Use Character and Entity References Not all characters are available on the keyboard! This hack shows you how to represent such characters in an XML document by using decimal and hexadecimal character references, and how to represent entities by using entity references |
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Validate RSS and Atom Documents Use an online validator to check your RSS and Atom documents |
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What's the Diff? Diff XML Documents If you are handling many XML documents, sometimes you need to check the differences between two or more documents. You can perform diffs of XML documents with online and command-line tools |
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Work with XML in Microsoft Access 2003 If you are a Microsoft Access user, you'll be happy to know that you can export Access 2003 data as XML |
Yahoo!
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Add a Content Tab to Yahoo! Messenger With a bit of Registry hacking, you can add a custom content tab to Yahoo! Instant Messenger |
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The Code | |
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Mash Up Images from Around the Web The Yahoo! Image API provides access to thousands of images across the Web, and developers are recombining these images into new applications that let you play along |
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Monitor Your Commute Let Yahoo! Local point out construction, accidents, and other potential slow spots on your route |
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Program Yahoo! with Perl Grabbing data from Yahoo! Search Web Services can be quite easy with just a little bit of Perl |
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Search Your Web Site with Yahoo! Offer your readers a way to search your site—without hiring a team of developers to build it |
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The Code | |
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Translate Any Page with Yahoo! The World Wide Web has pages in every language, and Yahoo! can help you break through the language barrier |
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Visualize News Topics as Tags Two services, Yahoo! News Tag Soup and TagCloud, use the Yahoo! Contextual Web Search API to help you visualize which topics are mentioned the most across Yahoo! News and your favorite sites |
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Visualize Your Music Collection Use the Yahoo! Music Engine API to find out which artists appear most often in your collection |
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The Code |
