Windows Downloads: Easily use ISOs with the ISO Recorder powertoy

ISO Recorder is a small utility that allows you to create and burn ISO images from and to CDs and DVDs. It's extremely easy to use and is integrated in context menus of ISO files and disc drives. It's as easy as right-clicking! There is also a command-line version available.

ISO Recorder is available for Windows 2000 (command-line only), XP and Vista.

Go to the ISO Recorder home page

Windows Download: Make scrollwheel behaviour like Linux's with KatMouse

If you've ever used Linux, you'd know that to use the mouse scrollwheel, you have to move the mouse to the window you want to scroll on, and just scroll. On Windows, you actually have to click (get keyboard focus) on that window in order to scroll.

If this annoys you every time you have to come back to Windows, there's a solution: KatMouse. This little utility (less than 400kb) allows you to do just this. To scroll something, simply move the mouse to where you'd like to scroll. No need to click or alt-tab to that window.

However, there's something else you should know about this utility: I highly recommend you disable the wheel button feature it includes (by right-clicking on the tray icon and choosing setting, going to the 'Wheel Button' tab, and setting the combo box to something different from the default Wheel Button) since this disables the wheel's normal functionality (like opening links in tabs in web browsers, or auto-scrolling).

Anyway, hope this little app proves useful.

Text Editors: Notepad++ and GVim go Portable

A few days ago, Notepad++, the famous Windows text editor, was released as a PortableApp, Notepad++ Portable. I have used Notepad++ for quite some time now, and I am very glad that now I can easily take it anywhere I want on my USB flash drive.

For those of you with a more classic, Unix-y taste, there is also GVim Portable, which takes up a LOT more space than Notepad++, but includes all the amazing features of Vi withing an easy-to-use graphical interface.

Click Here to go to the Notepad++ Portable home page.
Click Here to go to the GVim Potable home page.

uTorrent 1.7 released

The newest version of the amazingly complete and lightweight bittorrent app, uTorrent, has been released. It boasts great new features such as full Vista support, local seeding, and no piece limit for torrents. Download it now from utorrent.com!

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How to: Make Firefox 3 Alpha 6 (or any pre-release version for that matter) portable

Now that Firefox 3 is approaching its beta milestone, more and more people are enthusiastic about trying out its new features. In a previous post, I mentioned some of the novelties Gran Paradiso Alpha 6 offers. Now, I will teach you how to make this new and improved version of Firefox portable so you can run it from a USB flash drive or an iPod on any Windows or Linux-with-Wine computer.

Step 1: Get Firefox Portable

Go to the PortableApps website and download the current (2.0.0.4) version of Firefox Portable.

Run the installer and extract Firefox Portable to any directory you want, like your flashdrive. For the purposes of this tutorial, this directory will be G:\FirefoxPortable

Step 2: Download and install Firefox pre-release version

This can be Gran Paradiso Alpha 6, or the latest Minefield Nightly Build, or any other version of Firefox that you want.

If you downloaded a Win32 .exe installer, just install it on any folder in your computer, say C:\Program Files\Gran Paradiso.

If you downloaded the Nightly Build in the .zip archive, it's even easier. Just unzip it to the most convenient location you have at hand, like your desktop.

Step 3: Delete Firefox 2 files from Firefox Portable

Go to the place where you installed Firefox Portable (say, G:\FirefoxPortable) and delete every file in the \App\firefox directory. That will leave you with just the Firefox Portable launcher, but no Firefox program.

Step 4: Copy pre-relase files to Firefox Portable

Go to the folder where you installed Gran Paradiso or Minefield and copy all the files there to the G:\FirefoxPortable\App\firefox directory (or wherever you installed Firefox Portable).

Step 5: Enjoy!

That's it. Just run the FirefoxPortable.exe launcher now, and after a couple of seconds Gran Paradiso or Minefield should start.

So, to sum it all up...

1. Download & install Firefox Portable


2. Download & install Minefield or Gran Paradiso


3. Replace Firefox 2 files with pre-release files on Firefox Portable

Hope this was helpful, and remember: only use Alpha and pre-Alpha software at your own risk!

6 Essential Tips for a Faster Windows

Since I'm the official computer geek everywhere I go, people tend to ask me to fix their computers because they're running too slow. This is normally what I do (or tell them to do) to their computers to help them.

1. Uninstall programs you never use

Head over to the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs and uninstall those which you don't use. Why would you need Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer when you always use Firefox? Why would you want to have Azureus and uTorrent (especially when uTorrent is much lighter)?

2. Do not use Norton or McAffee antivirus software

These are BIG memory and CPU hogs, and they're expensive to boot. I often recommend a better, free antivirus called Avast, which is faster and more light on system resources.

3. Use a faster webbrowser

Most webbrowsers are heavy on system resources. Particularly, Firefox has a lot of memory leak problems. One thing you could do is remove extension and themes that you don't use from Firefox. Or you could use an entirely different browser. On a previous post, I mentioned K-meleon, an extremely fast, extremely customizable alternative to Firefox. If you find that your computer gets too slow when surfing the web, try it and see the difference. And please, please, please do not use Internet Explorer.

4. Use QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative

Both QuickTime and Real Player suck up your memory by running in the background. If you use any of these programs, I highly recommend you uninstall them and get QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative, which don't run unless you want to play a file. Best of all, streaming media works exactly the same.

5. Do not use an indexer like Windows Desktop Search

While they are extremely useful, desktop search engines like Windows Desktop Search and Google Desktop take up a lot of CPU and memory when indexing. If you want your computer to be faster, you should uninstall or disable them.

6. Generally, use lighter alternatives to software you already use

If, after doing all of the above, you still feel that your computer is way too slow, try searching for alternative, faster software that can do what the bloated programs you use can. For example:

• Choose foobar2000 over Winamp, iTunes and WMP
• Choose uTorrent over Azureus
• Choose Abiword and Gnumeric instead of Word/Writer and Excel/Calc, and so on.

Overall, following these tips will make you computer run much faster. But if it's still not fast enough...

7. Get rid of Windows, once and for all

This is usually the first piece of advice I give to someone with a slow computer. ;) If you really want a fast computer experience, Windows is not for you. I highly recommend Xubuntu, a lightning-fast configuration of the famous Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution.

That's really all the advice I can give you. If you have anything to add to make a Windows computer faster, don't hesitate to leave a comment.