Things you’ll need

1. Windows 7 x64 disc image
2. Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool
3. 32-bit bootsect.exe

Create the installer

1. Install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
2. Extract the 32-bit bootsect.exe file to the directory that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool was installed to. This is usually something like “C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Apps\Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool“.
3. Run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool and select your Windows 7 disc image. Follow the remaining steps in this tool and your image should be created successfully!

If you’ve followed these steps and your flash installer was created successfully then your next step is to, of course, install Windows 7! Don’t forget to change your boot options to load from USB!

This information is scattered on the web and slightly detailed on the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool page, but I was not able to find a guide laid out as simplified as the one I’ve provided above. In most tutorials they suggest that you download the entire 32-bit iso in order to get the 32-bit bootsect.exe application, but I’ve made that step a lot less troublesome. Hopefully this has helped you!

Its funny to me, because for a while now I’ve only booted up in Windows to manually run updates and quick virus checks with the occasional Steam gaming session.

I run updates and scans almost religiously, so I know that October 3, 2010 was the last time that I even used this partition. Thats nearly 4 months of booting only in Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora) on my Desktop.

I do, however, use Mac OS X now on my new MacBook though. I’ve still not gotten around to installing Ubuntu on it, but maybe one day I’ll stop being lazy and just give it a spin.

I’ve known for a while that I could finally cut the cord from Windows, but this just officially confirmed it for me. That said, I won’t soon be giving up my free (via School) copy of Windows 7 Professional.

News came out last month that Cr-48 was able to run not just Googles new Chrome OS, but also Ubuntu!

Now, you can apparently also run Windows 7 or Mac OS X!

Opera 11 has been making a lot of buzz across the Internet today now that an alpha version has been released.

New in Opera 11 is support for the very much requested extensions! While there is currently a very limited selection of extensions available, I suspect this will quickly change.

If you’re using Opera 11 already and you’re also using Ubuntu 10.10 with the Ambiance or Radiance themes, do forget to update you skin with my Ambiance and Radiance skins for Opera.

For those who are curious, you can find brief changelogs in the comments with the latest one being here.

If you’re not using Opera 11 yet and would like to, go get it!

If you’re unfamiliar with this show, its simply a two hour mix of electronica and trance tunes by Solaris International with Solarstone. You can listen to their previous airings straight from their website, but I’ve finally come across their podcast in iTunes and found that it works perfectly in Linux as well with Rhythmbox!

Their site doesn’t seem to be as intuitive as it could be, which is why it took me so long to stumble across their podcast link. If you’re interested in subscribing, the link is posted immediately below. Copy and past it into your media player. If you’re unsure how, take a look at this excellent guide from GoingLinux.com.

Podcast Link to copy and paste:
http://www.solarstone.co.uk/listenAgain/deepblueradishow-podcast.xml

At the moment, there are over 220 previous podcast episodes available to download, so if you’ve got the time then they’ve got the tunes.

I’m usually not a fan of podcasts, but I have a select few that I frequent. This will easily become my favorite.

If you’re not a fan of electronica or trance music then you can kindly disregard this post or use this as a reminder to search for podcasts featuring music you yourself may enjoy!

If you have podcast recommendations, I would love to hear about them in the comments!

Here are some pictures for your entertainment. If you’d like to use this, you need to install the Google Voice plugin first and then restart you web browser.

Keep in mind that you need the plugin to do this (and obviously a microphone) and that you’ll be calling friends or family using a number provided to you by Google Voice (so they may not recognize it at first).

The best thing going for Google’s new calling feature (if you ask me) is that its completely free for me to call any phone in the USA. While this pricing may not be permanent, it should at least last through the course of this year (my source for that is linked somewhere up above ).

I'm being sued.

Remember when...

Touch you.

Loan

Just to talk...

Killing Linux.

Decisions...

Windows inefficiencies...

Millionare...

Antarctica

Netbooks...

If you have more, paste a link in the comments and I’ll credit you and add them!

Example from my Last.fm account in Collage mode.

This python script, by Koant, has been around since at least 2008, but I’ve only recently stumbled across it. It’s easy to start using and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux users!

I’ll help you get started in Linux since that’s what I’ve set it up on. If you need more help or want more configuration options you should look to the information that Koant has posted on his website.

Install

1. cd
2. mkdir wallpaperfm
3. cd wallpaperfm
4. wget http://ledazibao.free.fr/wallpaperfm/wallpaperfm.py
5. chmod a+x wallpaperfm.py

Create Your Wallpaper

1. ./wallpaperfm.py -u YOURLASTFMUSERNAME

That’s the most basic set of options you can use to create your wallpaper (which you will find after running the script in the “wallpaperfm” folder that was created).

There are three options for the type of wallpaper created:

1. Tile

Albums are packed in side by side.

2. Glass

A few albums are highlighted on a glassy surface.

3. Collage

Albums are meshed together in a dreamy design.

To specify one of these modes, simply run the wallpaper script with the mode flag set to your choice.

• ./wallpaperfm.py -u YOURLASTFMUSERNAME -m collage

There are plenty of other settings you can specify such as size, canvas size, filename, profile period, final opacity, cache, excluded albums, local copy, etc.

Suggestions and Ideas

User Interface and Packaging

I’m sure that this script could be simplified further for Linux users (and more specifically, Debian/Ubuntu users) if a user interface were created. It actually seems like a rather simple task since the parameters for the script are well bounded.

Adding this interface to an installer package would also be a very simple task and would most likely get more attention to such a neat tool!

Cron Jobs, Regularly Updating Your Wallpaper

Another thing, if your music preferences are constantly changing like mine, you may be interested in updating your wallpaper in regular intervals. To do this you can setup a Cron job that runs in the background.

While this may sound difficult and confusing, its really not at all and this helps explain a lot. I can even walk you through the steps.

1. sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule
2. Open the application (in Ubuntu) through the Applications menu -> System Tools -> Scheduled tasks.
3. Click the New button and select the Recurrent task type.
4. Give the task a description.
5. Enter the command that runs your script. If you followed the steps above then it should be something similar to:

   /home/YOURUBUNTUNAME/wallpaperfm/wallpaperfm.py -u YOURLASTFMUSERNAME -m collage -f /home/YOURUBUNTUNAME/wallpaperfm/wallpaper

6. Set the Time & Date option to hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.
7. Click the “Add” button to add it to your list of Scheduled Tasks and you’re done!

Have any other suggestions or tips? Leave ‘em in the comments!

My IOGraph in a Dual Screen (2.5 hours).

As you can see, most of my activity is in my second monitor (right) where my web browser rests, between the tabs and content towards the top. My coding habits and text editor occupy the first monitor (left) and show noticeably less mouse movement and more periods of pausing to work with the keyboard or read.

This application is Java based and runs in Windows, Mac and Linux! I’ll give you a quick run down on how to use this application in Ubuntu..

1. Make sure that you have Java 6 Runtime installed on your computer. If you don’t, open the Ubuntu Software Center and search for Java. You should find “OpenJDK Java 6 Runtime” near the top of the results. Install that before continuing.
2. Download IOGraph for Linux and save it where ever you like (I saved mine to the desktop).
3. Before you can open the Java application (a .Jar file), you will need to set proper executable permissions for it. To do this, simply right click on the file and select Properties. In the Permissions tab, check to enable the option labeled “Allow executing file as program” and click close.
   

   Allow executing file as program

4. Now to run the application, right click on the file again and select “Opera with OpenJDK Java 6 Runtime”.
   

   Open with OpenJDK Java 6 Runtime

Now that you’ve got the application running, you can minimize it and let it track your every move! If you’re having trouble, you may be able to find more help with .Jar files here.

The circles represent points where the mouse was left motionless for a period of time. The larger the circle, the longer it was left motionless.

Enjoy making art while you work and please share your results!

I look forward to testing the Official Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha release on Tuesday, December 22. However, until then I’ll be digging through this leaked version.

Note that Opera has officially warned against installing such leaked builds, stating that the official release will be “much better and you don’t risk getting nasty trojans on you pc.”

Here are some screenshots I’ve taken. I don’t cover everything, but just enough to give you a good idea of what we should be expecting. I also won’t be detailing all of these pictures, but a picture is worth a thousand words right? Inspect them and see what you can find!

I did notice a lot of skin changes and a couple of bugs here and there dealing with the skin, but it’s overall very much improved. The internal “opera:*” pages also seem to be using a different style than previous builds, but then again they may have dropped using the Opera logo in the top of the pages.

Notice the border-radius support!

Try this build at your own risk!
http://rapidshare.com/files/323481638/Opera_1050_20192_in.msi
http://depositfiles.com/files/e01z2q5qp