Alfredo Talamantes

5 Great Blogs for IT Freelancers

1. Technibble.com is a great resource for IT Technicians like myself.  The article that caught my eye is their Technician’s Gear and Tool Kit.  They also had a “Computer Repair Utility Kit”, but I don’t think they are still providing that.  Their “How to Start A Computer Business” page is a must read.

2. Lifehacker.com is an excellent source of tips and tricks for daily tech work.  The blog doesn’t always talk about computer related things, but that’s why it stands out. It has a ton of power users that are willing to help out on the weekly open threads. My favorite posts there are the “hive fives”. Gizmodo is its gadget and techie brother blog. Check both of them out.

3. How-To Geek has a lot of tips on how to do stuff basically, like How to setup and install a Windows Home Server, How to use Remote Desktop to Access Other Computers on a Small Office or Home Network, and How to Share Files and Printers on a Windows 7 Homegroup. All very handy tips. They also include sometimes a collection of wallpapers from time to time which is really nice.

4. PacketLife.net if you’re into networking, then you’re going to love this blog. They have a great source of networking tips (from beginners to advanced) and a lot of great tools that anyone can use for free. I found these great cheat sheets (and a poster) that help you remember the protocols, applications, reference sheets like common ports and subnetting, syntax sheets, and technologies cheat sheets. All can be found here.

5. FreelanceFolder.com is a blog for any type of freelancer really, and they have good tips on many things us freelancers work and how they work. Productivity, Inspiration, How-To, Lifestyle, and Marketing tips can be found here. If you’re a freelance designer or writer, then you might want to check out their guides.

Well those are my picks and I read the almost every day. If you know of any other good blogs, please share them in the comments.

How to Optimize your media for XBMC with Media Renamer and Media Companion

XBMC is an awesome open-source media center and when you want to have the best experience with it, you want to optimize your media to make that happen.

When I started using XBMC, my media looked somehting like this

\Downloaded\

……………\Behind Enemy Lines[2001]DVDrip[ENG]-PZE\

……………………….\Behind Enemy Lines[2001]DVDrip[ENG]-PZE.avi

…………….\MythBusters.S07E12.Knock.Your.Socks.Off.HDTV.XviD-FQM.avi

Sure this plays alright with XBMC of course and all you need is the path to it. But XBMC lets us do more than that.  For example, on library mode it allows you to view all of your movies with movie posters and fan-art, depending on your XBMC skin. You can also tell XBMC to do the ’scraping’ automatically and I’m going to show you is how you can do that with

The skin that I’m using right now is the MediaStream Redux. There are more skins here and if you’re new to XBMC I suggest you start with the default Project Mayhem 3 first.

If you rename your media using media renamer you can get organize your media in a better way. Media Renamer gets the media info from TheTVDB.com and TheMovieDB.org for the correct movie or episode title.

For example, in this case if it ’scraped’ Behind Enemy Lines

I would get the information on this page like so:

First you tell Media Renamer which folder you want to scan. use the '...' box and point to your media folder. After you press start scan the files inside your folder appear.

As you can see, there is a TV Series tab and Movies tab so you can rename files correctly accordingly.

After you selected the files you want to rename, go ahead and press the ‘Rename Selected Episodes’ button.  The time to rename these files depends on how many you have. This took less than a second. You can now go into the folder and see the files you just renamed.  Notice it only renamed the files and not the folder, so at this time want to rename the folder exactly as the file name.

Now I have a folder like this:

\Downloaded\

………\Behind Enemy Lines (2001)\

………………\Behind Enemy Lines (2001).avi

………..\MythBusters – 7×12 – Viewer Special Threequel.avi

Now after the media renaming is done, I went ahead and created new folders and moved the files into those folders so I can organize them better like so:

\Movies\

…….\Behind Enemy Lines (2001)\

………………\Behind Enemy Lines (2001).avi

\TV Shows\

……\Mythbusters\

…………\Season 7\

……………….\MythBusters – 7×12 – Viewer Special Threequel.avi

Now we whip out Media Companion to ’scrape’ the Media info, posters, and those cool fan-arts. Media Companion gets the fancy posters and fan-art off of MoviePosterDB and TVDB.

Open Media Companion, go to Preferences>Folders and add the folders that contain your media.

Press the 'Search for new movies' button and let the program do it's thing.

70 Useful Portable Apps

70 Awesome Portable Apps

Some great portable apps can also be found here

[via Hongkiat]

My Top 10 Apps

1. Google Chrome/Firefox Portable

My top app is a web browser, what a surprise…I use Google Chrome on my desktop at home and portable firefox on my usb stick and take that to wherever I go.

2. Google Apps

I’m a big fan of Google and of course I use their Apps. My Gmail is setup to send a copy of emails I receive to my Ymail account just so in case. I have many rss subscriptions and I read them using Google Reader.  I’m a college student and I keep my homework and test dates on GCalendar. I also have it setup to send me email updates everyday so I don’t forget. I also keep copies of my school homework  in Google Docs.

3. KeePass

I use keepass to manage all my passwords. You can encrypt your password database and keep it secure with a key file. There is a handy portable version of KeePass also.

4. VLC

VLC Player can play almost anything you throw at it. It let’s you do more things than just play music and video files, you can stream stuff with this awesome little app too.  I use the portable app version on my usb stick too.

5. Dropbox

Dropbox lets you synchronize files where ever you are.  I use it to sync my personal documents and some public documents to anyone I want using the public folder. In case I forget to store a file on my usb I just go to the web interface and get it from there.  I also use it to sync my KeePass Database.

6. Digsby/Pidgin Portable

How am I supposed to chat with family and friends if I don’t have an IM Client? All my friends and family are scattered all over different IM protocols (yahoo im, gtalk, hotmail) and Digsby is what I use on my desktop and Portable Pidgin anywhere else to bring those together.  I like Digsby because you can also check new emails and update your social media accounts right the client. Same goes for Pidgin and it is portable and  lighter.

7. NotePad++/FileZilla

When I need to update my website and code things, this is the app that I use.  I like it because it’s light weight, it has themes, and there’s also a portable version. As you can see I like my apps to have a portable version :D. Then I use FileZilla to transfer to and from the web server or my xbox which brings me to my next app.

8. XBMC

Originally for the xbox, this is an amazing media center application. I use it on my xbox that is connected to my home network, and stream movies, music, and pictures from my home server or desktop. It lets you get a weather forecast too.  Since it’s an xbox I can still play my xbox games and on it.  It can also stream videos from Apple Trailer, YouTube, and many other video websites using scripts and plug-ins. It’s very customizable and this app can also be used with Windows, Mac, Linux, Apple TV, and a CD or USB drive. The only downside is that the xbox can’t handle HD content very well because of its old hardware.

9. iTunes/Zune

I use these apps basically to sync my iPod and Zune with my music and podcasts. Combine iTunes with Last.FM scrobbler and I can see the top artists, and songs I’m listening to, not to mention listening to them for free on the Last.FM website or my xbox.

10. Taskbar Shuffle/Ultramon/RealVNC

Taskbar Shuffle lets you move around the minimized window buttons at the task bar. Ultramon can handle multiple monitor setups with ease. I use RealVNC to remote control computers across my network.

There are many other programs I use but these are my personal favorites. I recommend these to anyone.

Crazy Multiple Monitor Setup

This is the most monitors i’ve seen hooked up together in a system.  I counted 24.  I have no idea what they are for but it looks amazing.

If you find a picture with even more monitors, post a link, I’d like to see it.