Customizing Your Ipod With Rockbox

Have you ever wanted more from your Ipod like games or maybe just more options. Well there is something called Rockbox that you will probably like. Rockbox is another operating system that you can install onto you Ipod without having to erase or delete anything from your Ipod. It is a great utility to add to your Ipod and best of all it is free to use. Lets get started then shall we.

First off you will need to goto http://www.rockbox.org/download/ and choose the right kind of Ipod that you have and download the .zip file (you will only have to do this if you are doing the manual install). You will also want to download the manual for your specific Ipod that you have because I only have an Ipod video 30gb so your process may differ from mine just a bit. You will also need to download the Rockbox Utility if you would prefer a graphical install. I am going to cover going both routes in this tutorial (graphical install and manual install).

Now lets get started with the installation process.

Graphical Install:
First you will need to unzip the Rockbox Utility and then double click on the rbutilqt.exe to start it up. You should then see a window come up that looks like the one below.

Rockbox Utility Screen

Now we have to let the program know what kind of device that we want to install Rockbox on. So you will have to navigate to File > Configure. A window should come up then you just have to hit the Autodetect button in the bottom right hand corner. It will then show your device and also the dropdown menu with all of the other Ipod versions in it.

Configuration screen

Now from here you just have to hit OK and it should bring you back to the first screen. Now you have to decide if you will want to do the Complete Installation or the Small Installation. I will be doing the Complete Installation. When you click Complete Installation a dialog box comes up asking if you would like to go through with the install and since you do you will want to click Yes.

Confirm Installation screen

After you click yes it will proceed to install the Bootloader and also download it. After the bootloader is downloaded and installed it will then download the rockbox.zip file and install it. Then the program will download some fonts and install them too.

The Installation screen

Now you are done just click OK and then close out of the Rockbox Utility. Now just unplug your Ipod and it should boot right into Rockbox. So now you are done and you have successfully installed Rockbox onto your Ipod. If you would like to go the other route and do this manually then just keep reading.

Rockbox interface on the Ipod

Manual Install:

To start you will have to unzip your Rockbox.zip file (mine was called rockbox-ipodvideo-3.0.zip yours should be something similar) you will then need to take the unzipped folder (should be .rockbox) and put it in the root directory of your Ipod.

Extracted Rockbox folder

Now you will have to install the bootloader so that you will be able to boot into Rockbox on your Ipod. You will need to download this to install the bootloader: http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/win32/ipodpatcher.exe. You will then have to run the ipodpatcher.exe. It will open in a command window and will do a scan to find your Ipod.

Command window after scan for Ipod

After the scan you will need to type i then hit enter to install the bootloader. You will then see it start to install and after only a little bit it should be done. You just need to hit enter again to exit the window.

Successfully installed bootloader

Now you are done just eject your Ipod from you computer and it should load right into Rockbox (if it doesn't you may need to hold the middle and menu button in for a couple seconds).

Successfull Rockbox install

Now that you have Rockbox installed on your Ipod you may be wondering if you will still be able to get back into you normal Ipod install. Yes you can and very easily too all you have to do is reset your Ipod by holding in the middle button and menu button and then when you see the Apple logo you need to push the hold switch into the hold position then wait for it to boot into the normal Ipod firmware. Now you have a very customizable Ipod and if you look around on the Rockbox site you will be able to find a ton more goodies to install on it.

Dual Booting Ubuntu The Easy Way Using Wubi

Have you ever wanted to give Ubuntu Linux a try but didn't want to go through the process of repartitioning your hard drive to do it? Well now it is easier than ever and only takes about and hour and you will have it up and running perfectly in no time at all. You can do this by using a program called Wubi (Windows Ubuntu Installer) the little Ubuntu helper that we will be using to accomplish this task. So lets get this thing rolling.

First you will need to download the wubi.exe file from here: http://wubi-installer.org/.

You will then need to navigate to where you downloaded it and open it up. You should then see a window that looks like the one below.

Now you just have to enter in all or you data like the username and password that you will want to use. Also you can change how large you would like your install to be. You shouldn't need much but this will depend on how you will be using it. I choose to use 15GB's for my install but you can choose however much you would like to allocate. After you have everything set the way you want just click next and it should start to download the Ubuntu image.

Now you just wait for it to finish downloading

After it's done downloading you will get a screen that says you will need to preform a reboot. You then just need to click finish and make sure that you have the reboot now selected.

Make sure you have reboot now selected

On the reboot there will be a black screen that will show Xp or Vista (depending which you have installed) and Ubuntu. You will need to push the down arrow key on your keyboard and hit enter to select and boot into Ubuntu. If you miss this screen (because it will only stay for a couple of seconds) then just reboot like you normally would and try to select it again. Once it boots into Ubuntu you should see it start the installation process.

Now you just have to wait for Ubuntu to finish installing

Now we wait for it to finish installing (took about 15 minutes on my machine). Once it is done it will reboot and now you will have to select Ubuntu at start-up again. This time when you boot into Ubuntu you will be prompted to put in your username and password that you chose at the first wubi screen. Then once you are in if you have an internet connection connected to the machine you should be asked to install some updates. If you don't have an internet connection connected you are done with the installation process.

There are some update that will need to be installed

After all of these updates are done downloading and installing you will most likely be prompted to reboot. You now need to select Ubuntu on start-up again and as before you will be prompted for you username and password. Now when you are at the desktop you are free to do what you please because you have successfully installed Ubuntu on top of you Windows installation.

The clean Ubuntu desktop look

Now we are done so you can start to play around in Ubuntu and have some fun. Also be sure to come back again because I will be showing how to customize your Ubuntu desktop and setup the infamous Desktop Cube as with many other Ubuntu and Linux goodies.

Intro To The GIMP Image Editor

Have you ever wanted to make those really cool looking photos that others make in Photoshop but don't want to throw down that much cash to do it. Well as with most things there are free alternatives that you can turn to. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a image editor and a very powerful one at that it can do most everything that the highest version of Photoshop can do at the nice price of Free. If you already know how to use Photoshop or have used it many things are very similar which make it very easy to learn and if you have never used it before then this is a good place to start too. So lets get started.

1. If you are using Linux you will probably already have GIMP installed or you can install it from your package manager. If you are on Windows or Mac you will need to download and install it from here: http://www.gimp.org/

2. Now to get started open up your GIMP. It should load up with a Tip Of The Day window and also a tool bar window. Now to open up a image that we would like to edit we just goto the tool bar window and navigate to file > open. From here you just browse to the image you would like to open and simply click open and it should open you picture in a new separate window.

It should look something like this

3. Now to start editing the image. Lets start with something that everyone will use.

Cropping Tool: To open up your cropping tool right click on your image > Tools > Transform Tools > Crop (shift + C if you like using hot keys). Now you just click and drag the area that you would like to crop. The light area will be what your image will look like after you crop it and the darker area will be the part that will get cut off. If you need to adjust the area just click and drag the edges to where you would like them to be. When you are done and you want to accept the changes you just hit enter.

Before the crop and after the crop

Brightness and Contrast: This is a very simple tool to use and also a very common tool. You can navigate to this tool by right clicking on the image again > Colors > Brightness and Contrast. Then a small window will pop up with some sliders for you brightness and your contrast. To make the image brighter just drag the brightness slider to the right and drag to the left to make it darker. You should see your image changing when you are moving the sliders around if it is not you make need to put a tick in the preview box. Then when you have your values that you want you just click OK to apply the changes.

Brightness and contrast pop up box

Those are just a small portion of the tools that come with GIMP but if you play around with it a bit you will be able to learn to do a ton of different things. The tools listed above should just get you started with cleaning up some of your photos that you have taken. If you would like to learn more about GIMP you should take a look at these tutorials here: http://meetthegimp.org/. I have learned a wealth of information from those tutorials. Just remember to have fun and be creative.

Using Pidgin For All Of Your Messaging Needs

If you are like me and have many different instant messaging clients and seem to have them all open at once so you can chat with all of your friends at the same time across multiple clients. Well there is a program that has integrated most of the top messengers into one place. Pidgin is a messaging client that integrates many different messaging services into one place. It has a very clean and easy to use interface that manages all of your accounts at one time. There are many different protocols built into the interface such as:  AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC, SIP/SIMPLE, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Bonjour, Zephyr, MySpaceIM, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ. With all of these different messaging services built into the program you should be able to have all of your accounts in one easy to use interface. So lets get started now shall we.

1. You just have to download and install the latest version from one of the various sources: http://www.pidgin.im/ or from www.filehippo.com.
(Most Linux distributions have this already preinstalled or you can install from your package manager.)


2. Lets setup your accounts. When you first start the program for the first time you should be greeted with a message like the one below.

3. Then you simply click on add and choose the protocol from the drop down menu that you want to add. Then just fill out your account information that pertains to that protocol and then click on save.

4. Then to add more accounts you can click on add from the start-up window if you still have it open or you can goto > Accounts > Manage Accounts then select add from the window that opens. Then just keep doing this until you have all of your accounts setup.

Have fun with pidgin it is truly a great messaging client I myself use it all the time. Pidgin makes it vary easy to manage many accounts in one simple environment.