April 30, 2009 - Reading time: 4 minutes

I’m continuing my series of hi-res videos of the MODx content management system, this time I’m stepping through how you can easily take existing HTML and CSS layouts and adapt them for use with MODx. For my example, I take Eric Meyer’s “Complex Spiral” demo and within a few minutes, I have it adapted for use with my site.

It’s an exciting time to be writing about this platform: the first book about MODx was published by Packt Publishing, and we anticipate the release of their “2.0” version (dubbed “Revolution”) later this year.

I include the image below as a quick reference for the placeholder tags used by MODx. Refer to the wiki page for a more complete list.

April 23, 2009 - Reading time: 3 minutes

I was going to write an article detailing how to unlock your iPhone 3G, but the process is commonplace now… videos on YouTube and blog instructions abound. I don’t have the guts to try it on my phone — I just don’t have time. Furthermore, I have seen the quirky behavior of my friends’ phones after unlocking them, and well… I’d rather not deal with that stuff. Some of the bad behavior that I’m aware of directly from friends includes the following: Read more

April 21, 2009 - Reading time: 9 minutes

You’ve got movies, and you want to watch them… you just want to watch them on your iPhone or on your iPod. Well, that shouldn’t be a problem… you simply go to Google, search for some kind of tutorial for ripping the DVDs, and then you’ll be on your way… but you didn’t anticipate the stench-filled sewers you would have to crawl through to attain your goal. You didn’t think you’d have to stoop this low to complete your journey. No, I’m not talking about digital rights management… I’m talking about the fact that someone made a tutorial that showed how to rip a DVD… using the putrid footage of Quentin Tarentino’s Kill Bill.

Comment by Brian: Yes, that is our very own TipsFor.us author Everett playing the role of Quentin Tarentino just for this post. Wow.

Some friends of mine have tried to convince me that Kill Bill wasn’t that bad, but *obviously* their minds have been corroded by Hollywood mediocrity. You can watch the original South Park episode I spoofed above, but I’m warning you: Matt and Trey made a horrible omission when they only took down M. Night Shyamalan and Michael Bay and neglected to reign in the sadistic wanker Tarentino. (Thanks to Nick Broomfield and JG Ballard for including Kill Bill in their lists of the worst movies of all time.) Read more

April 17, 2009 - Reading time: 3 minutes

Looking to kill a few minutes of time at the end of the workday while still appearing busy? Try the maddeningly frustrating yet addictive game called Red Square.

Red Square – mikemiller.net

As it game, it doesn’t get much simpler than this. All you do is click a red square once and hang on for dear life! That’s right, it’s a bit like bull riding.

Once you click the red square, the blue shapes will start moving automatically around the screen. The object of the game is to avoid conflict – if the red square runs into the wall or a blue shape, the game ends. Read more

April 11, 2009 - Reading time: 7 minutes

Want to give Ubuntu Linux a shot, but worry that you will somehow mess up your Windows installation? Fear not! I’ve written before about Three Easy Ways to Try Ubuntu Without Breaking Anything. Now here is another option to try:

Portable Ubuntu – via Sourceforge.net (Update: Looks like the project is dead.)

With Portable Ubuntu, you can run an entire Linux distribution within Windows. As the name implies, there’s nothing to install – you can run it directly from your hard disk or from a large USB flash drive.

Portable Ubuntu is built from the same base as andLinux, a system that allows you to run Linux seamlessly within Windows. Unlike running Linux from within a virtual machine, there’s no unique desktop – all you get is a taskbar, and any applications that you run hook into the native Windows title bars and other, um... windows. Read more

April 1, 2009 - Reading time: 23 minutes

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do with your Windows installation is to just nuke it and start over from scratch. If you’ve ever done that before, you know just how long it takes to get all your files transferred, drivers and programs reloaded, and updates patched. The process can take hours, even days. While a true geek might actually enjoy the process a tiny bit, it’s much more satisfying to create a disk image of your pristine Windows install that you can revert to if it gets screwed up later.

I’ve written about this process a few times before, but today I would like to introduce Paragon Drive Backup Express. Essentially, Drive Backup Express (DBE) is the free version of Paragon’s commercial software. As expected, it lacks features compared to its commercial siblings, but is still quite usable. Hey, it’s hard to complain about free software. Read more