Mike's Mostly Tech blog

Improving productivity and fun with browser add-ons and scripts

I spend all day working online and managing information systems.
I was asked again how come I don’t have the same ‘bad experiences’ others do when browsing the internet. Why I don’t get things like getting ‘drive by Trojans’, bogus Anti-virus pop-ups, and obtrusive music or videos that play no matter what.
I mentioned that besides the obvious of keeping all of my systems AND applications(browsers, Acrobat etc.)up to date with the latest security patches, always making sure I have the latest Anti-Virus/anti-spyware updates and not going places I know I shouldn’t or clicking on suspicious links, the most likely reason beyond that is the web browser and add-ons I use that make my browsing more productive and fun. I also spend a great deal of time furthering my education, catching up with friends and family and just plane wasting what little free time I may have being entertained online.
I have put together many tools and configuration additions that make all of the things I do with my systems way simpler and easier.
I hope these may help some of you be more productive and provide for a more pleasurable internet experience.
I work with lot’s of different people with varied technical skill sets from absolute newbie’s all the way to the guys with lot’s of CC’s and MS’s after their names, and when they see how much I can ‘just do’ from the browser they are often just amazed.
I am a believer in ‘Kaizen’. Why not try to do everything better if you can. Work, play, rest, worship and just plain life in general. So I hope some will take the time and try and use some of these tools and tips and have some more fun and a more pleasant and rewarding internet experience.
First off I must start off with the ‘machine’ with which I connect to the internet with 90+% of the time.
That is Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
I use Firefox not because it is not any more secure than IE (compared to IE8 it is definitely not, but that is news for another post.), Safari, Chrome or Opera, but I use it because the ‘browser is the machine or portal’ that gets you to all of the ‘stuff out there’ and Firefox has ALL these custom tools and add-ons available to make just about everything I do easier, faster, funner and more efficient.
I use IE only when absolutely needed; usually with custom built applications that require some of IE’s more integrated Windows ‘hooks’. I actually like the way Internet Explorer renders pages better than Firefox. But the lack of add-ons stop me from using it.
Google’s Chrome is a fast simple browser but all of the extensions for Firefox have not been ported yet. AND I really dislike how the ‘Google updater’ is continuously running and connected to Google. As much as I like lots of things Google, especially Gmail and Google Docs, I try to restrict some of the information they are gathering on me.
[While I do love my Gmail, Google is getting more like big digital brother than imagined.]
I used to recommend the Google Toolbar for Firefox and IE but I have now removed it from ALL of my machines. I now recommend that everyone do the same. Seems Google is being even more sneaky and still tracking you even when you disable ‘sending of usage statistics’! I realize it is for ‘marketing’ – to provide you with targeted adds. People forget Google is in the ADVERTISING business; and they are very profitable at it. But I just don’t need that much data collected on me. Here is one article describing the issue. And here is another.]

I was recently asked about these tools and items so I just updated the links and information and added a few items. I hope you all enjoy.
Here are the Firefox Extensions I use:

After the Deadline
After the Deadline checks spelling, misused words, style, and grammar using artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Now you can use it in your browser. Write better blog comments, tweet with correct grammar, and compose professional messages.

Better Gmail 2:
Developed by the founder of Lifehacker.com Better Gmail 2 compiles the best Greasemonkey user scripts for Gmail into a single package. Adds useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons, and more.

BetterPrivacy
Super-Cookie Safeguard (protects from LSO Flash Objects, DOM Storage Objects).

DownloadHelper:
I use this A LOT. Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item. It is also possible to capture all the images from a gallery in a single operation.

Adblock Plus:
Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them.

FaviconizeTab:
Alows you to right click on a tab and ‘Faviconize’ it.

FireFTP:
FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

gui:conif:
Adds a graphical interface for Firefox about:config tweaking. Useful for the non-geek crowd.

Ghostery:
Ghostery allows you to detect trackers on the sites you visit, learn more about the companies behind them, and control their visibility into your online behavior.

Firesheep:
A Firefox extension that demonstrates HTTP session hijacking attacks. Nice to know if someone is ‘sniffing’ your wireless browsing!

IE Tab 2
Allows you to use IE to display web pages in a tab within FireFox. This updated version includes support for FireFox 3.6 and will continue to be updated with new features and enhancements.

MultirowBookmarksToolbar:
Multi Row Bookmarks Toolbar.

PDF Download:
Use PDF Download to do whatever you like with PDF files on the Web. Regain control and eliminate browser problems, view PDFs directly in Firefox as HTML, and use the all-new Web-to-PDF toolbar to save and share Web pages as high-quality PDF files.

Perspectives:
Perspectives is a new approach to help clients securely identify Internet servers in order to avoid "man-in-the-middle" attacks.

RightToClick:
Defeats a wide varity of javascript annoyances like disabled right click (contextmenu) , disabled text selection, disabled drag&drop and many more.
Enables right-click, text selection, context-menu, drag&drop and much more where it is disabled by Javascript.
Puts little ‘Arrow’ in bottom corner allowing you to enable, then highlight and right-click and/or copy text!

StopAutoplay:
Disable the autoplay of the embedded music and movies. User action (clicking on the play arrow) is then required to hear or see ‘active content’. Some people don’t like this because the want to click on a YouTube link and have it play right away. I DON’T. Being the control freak I am I want things to play ONLY when I choose them to. I would rather go to the page and use DownloadHelper add-on mentioned above, to download the file and view it with out all the buffering and such. Most web videos are ‘Flash’ video format, and can be played back via a freeware flash player like the one from Martijn de Visser his site is here and the actual player download is here.
I love this one! Stops that lousy music or videos from playing automatically playing on certain sites.

TinEye Reverse Image Search:
TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version.

User Agent Switcher:
The User Agent Switcher extension adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of a browser. The extension is available for Firefox and will run on any platform that this browser supports including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Helpful for sites that require specific browsers and versions.

Download Context Menu:
Shows the Explorer context (right click) menu of downloaded files in the Downloads list.

Open Bookmarks in New Tab
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13784

Vacuum Places:
Defragments your Firefox "Places" database (history/bookmarks). This greatly reduces the lag while typing in the address bar and the start-up time.

BetterPrivacy:
Better Privacy serves to protect against not delete-able long-term cookies, a new generation of ‘Super-Cookie’, which silently conquered the internet.

VTzilla:
VTzilla is a Mozilla Firefox browser plugin that simplifies the process of scanning Internet resources with VirusTotal. It allows you to download files directly with VirusTotal’s web application prior to storing them in your PC. Moreover, it will not only scan files, but also URLs.

WiseStamp:
WiseStamp Email Apps enable users to bring social functionality in every email they send.

Greasemonkey:
Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and functions by adding additional scripts.
Hundreds of scripts are already available for free. And if you’re the tinkerer sort, you can also write your own.

[ultimate greasemonkey repository – if there is a script it is here:http://userscripts.org/ ]

Remove Facebook Ads:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46560

Greasemonkey scripts I don’t use but have heard good things about:
I don’t go on Facebook much but if I were a real ‘facebooker’ I would use this one too:
UnFuck Facebook:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/11992

Another one I don’t use but for people who would like to have ‘folders’ in Gmail:
Folders4Gmail:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8810

Now to keep all tidy consistant in all places.
I use MS SyncToy to synchronize my Mozilla Firefox profiles from machine to machine too:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID;=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52

Pretty good Tutorial:
http://www.pchell.com/support/synctoy.shtml

Location of your Firefox profiles for synching:
Windows/Mac/Linux:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles#How_to_find_your_profile

Lastly even more geeky.
I have a portable version of Firefox on most of my usb flash drives so I can work on machines that might have had their browsers ‘compromised’ by maleware and virii.
To get more information on ‘Portable Firefox’go here:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
Here the more technically savvy will find out how to install, configure and update your portable edition.

Jailbreaking iDevices Continues

Ok iPhoners and iPaders if you have a new device and/or the latest iOS installed (4.1.x) you can now ‘jailbreak’ them easily with the latest ‘GreenPois0n’ Jailbreak tool.

Greenpois0n jailbreaks the iPhone 4/3GS, iPod touch 4G/3G, and the iPad. Their blog is here.

Here is a video of it in action.

Currently the crack is Windows only so (Mac and Linux users will have to borrow a Windows computer or run Windows in virtualization. They should be porting to all other OS’s soon.

I don’t have have an iDevice anymore but couldn’t imagine being locked into Apples restrictive use policies – and now the courts agree too. Article here and here.

You can Google the benefits yourself but here is a good quick article.

Simple Performance Tips

I am asked a few times a week at minimum “how can I speed up my system?” by friends, family and colleagues alike. Here are some very simple performance tips I perform on nearly all Windows systems I work with.

Before starting any system modifications please make sure you have a recent backup. Follow my previous posts here and here on backups and images. Run Windows update and update your Antivirus/Antispyware apps and other applications like Adobe Reader [launch the app, go to Help on the menu bar and go down to ‘Check For Updates’ and run and install.] Also update Adobe flash by opening your browser and going to Adobe’s site and getting the latest version. PDF and Flash are the most common vector for malicious code.

BE CAREFUL WHEN INSTALLING ADOBE PRODUCTS!!! They like to include ‘SHITWARE’, third party applications YOU DON’T NEED OR WANT’, like McAfee scanner or other ‘toolbars. Make sure to ‘uncheck’ any options to download AND install these when updating Adobe (or any others for that matter) applications. Be careful they are tricky and put other toolbar installers in the application updates – so before ‘just clicking’ ok/next make sure NOT to install any toolbars or other applications.

The run an Anti-virus and Anti-spyware scans to make sure your system is clean.

OK now for the meat:

First go to Mike Lin’s home page and get his great little ‘startup’ application.

http://mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Download the standalone application here.
It’s in a zip file.

Extract and save somewhere like ‘My Documents’ or your desktop.
Then just double click to launch it. If you are on Windows Vista or Windows 7 right-click and run as administrator.

You will then be shown all the different start up parameters for your system and the applications which are scheduled to start at various events – login, machine startup, user login etc. Simply click on an item to highlight it, right click and choose and option.

Using

The dialog contains six to seven tabs, depending on your system configuration. Each tab represents one place where a program can be registered to run at system startup. These include:

    * Startup (user) – the current user’s Startup folder in the Start Menu.
    * Startup (common) – the common (all users) Startup folder in the Start Menu.
    * HKLM / Run – the Run registry key located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. These apply for all users.
    * HKCU / Run – the Run registry key located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. These apply for the current user only.
    * Services – system services that are started before the user logs in. This appears only in Win9x; on NT/2000/XP, use the Services control panel, or the Services item in Computer Management.
    * Run Once – started once and once only at the next system startup.
    * Deleted – programs go to the Deleted tab when you remove them from another location. They will not run at system startup, but will merely be stored should you ever want to use them again. If you delete an item from the Deleted tab, it is removed permanently.

Each page contains a list of the programs registered at that location. Use the checkbox to enable or disable individual items. Additional operations are available by right-clicking an item. You can select multiple items using the Shift and Control keys. Options include:

    * New… – create a new entry. You can also drag & drop files from My Computer or Explorer.
    * Edit… – edit an existing entry.
    * Delete – delete the currently selected entry.
    * Disable / Enable – disable or enable the selected entry. A disabled program will appear in the list with a special icon, and will not run at system startup. You can also use the checkbox next to an item to enable or disable it.
    * Run Now – executes the program now.
    * Send To – moves the entry from the current location to another.

Press F5 to refresh the list at any time.

Be careful to NOT remove items critical to Windows and your Antivirus/Antispyware applications. Things that should stay are things like ‘ctfmon.exe (an office application), and your sound and /or track pad drivers.
Please note:
Before you disable or delete any listed startup items ‘Google’ the exact ‘exe’ file located in the path and FIND OUT WHAT IT IS AND DOES FIRST!

Here is and example of what I mean.

I usually find dozens of items that do NOT need to be starting at startup and/or login. Things like Adobe Acrobat ‘speed loader’, Adobe Updater, Google Updated, QuickTime, Messenger, Yahoo Toolbar, HP Image Center apps etc.

Another source of system hogging apps at startup are printers. HP (and nearly all software nowadays) is notorious for loading as many as a dozen ‘helper’ applications that you don’t need to run at start up. Things for updates, scanner updates, help desks, online help files and the like. All these items put a strain on system resources.

I find I can often dramatically increase the performance of most peoples machines by stopping all this ‘crapware’ from loading in the first place.

Once you have unchecked or deleted all the crapware from loading at startup restart your machine to make sure all works. If something is amok you can start in SafeMode (hold F8 before Windows starts) and run the app again and recheck or undelete any items as needed. If all is working time for next step.

Next item is clearing out temporary files. I use CCleaner. In fact I run this application EVERYTIME I close any browser, before I log off or shut down!

Here is the line for the application. Download, install, run and choose ‘Run Cleaner’.

The first time this is run many people are stunned by the size and amount of files it cleans out.

Then it’s time to do a ‘super defrag’ on your system.

I like Defraggler a lot.

Get it here. Since this is an intense defragmenter – it makes files ‘contiguous’ on the disk, it can take a long while the first time it is run. Sometimes all night! But definitely run this.

Please read my other posts on resolving Windows problems too.

I you have a Mac check out this article here.

Well that is all for now have a save fun computing experience.

Resolving Windows Systems Problems

Here is fine article on fixing common PC (Windows) problems. I highly recommend anyone with a Windows PC read this article.

As mentioned in the above article F1 is invaluable!
I have learned more from reading help files (and Internet searches) than through ANY instructor related training I have been through in the over the last 20 years!

You can press F1 within just about any application (not just MS applications) and bring up the Help window.

Also not mentioned, in the article but one that I MUST put in is use Google, Bing or other search engines. Because all the time you may not find the working solution in the help file or Microsoft FixIt Center.

I use Google and Bing to find sites, forums and blogs which give out step by step guides to solve tech problems. “Great” you say, but how do you know what advice to actually follow. A trick is to scan through the comments below the post or the conversations going on in the forums to see what others been saying. When you see the same solution presented over and over it is usually the right one (though not always).

If you go through blogs or forums related to your problem then you will notice how many people have gone through the same problem.

Another important fact when it comes to Google’ing, Bing’ing etc. is to use the appropriate search terms.

1. Use the exact error message or code.

In this way you will be able to find the most appropriate solutions from the search engines. I will always try to copy and paste the exact error message in Google or Bing or in the documentations such as F1 help files or downloaded manuals and walkthroughs.

2. Use the exact error message or code with the software/OS/website/ name and version.

If the error message is generic you have to use the name of the software, application, OS or website with its version details with the error message to see the related discussion and solutions.

3. Description of your problem with software/OS/website/ name and version

If there is no error message or code then you have to use a little description of the problem and all the other details related to the issue. That can be the operating system, software name or version details.

Always it is better to mix up the keywords or add and remove keywords to optimize the search result for your problem.

I have found that patience and persistence are invaluable!!
I often find my solution a page or two after the first page that is brought up on a search or a few links down from the first link and or within the comments of posted solutions.
The reasons for this are many, but mainly because people PAY to be listed first when it comes to certain search terms, especially those for technical solutions. And many of those PAYING to be listed high on search results are not always legitimate – meaning they are probably trying to sell or dupe you into some product or service(s) that will make them money and usually not really help you.

For those that are not experienced with technical solutions please take EXTRA care to NOT to just click on the ‘first or biggest’ link on a solution page, as this is usually just some type of advertisement or way to get you to install more crap on your system that is usually not reputable.

IF you do find a solution that suggests downloading or installing software please make sure that you have UP TO DATE Antivirus AND Anti-Spyware software installed. And for goodness sakes DO NOT install any type of ‘Scan Your PC’ software!!!

Please see my other posts about creating backups too. Before you embark on any system modifications you should have a recent validated backup of your entire system and files! [hence my love of imaging software – read about it in my other posts please]

Please not with computer problems my steps are always to first and foremost RESTART THE MACHINE.

Also you should know that when presented with a problem by friends, clients or family I usually follow all the steps as stated above. When someone emails or calls me with a question that can be easily solved by the above steps I usually shoot them back and email like this one:

“I cannot print files to the network printer….” someone will say so I send them back a link like this:)

http://tinyurl.com/3yobupj

Well I hope this helps some of you and you get the idea.

CheckPoint/Zone Alarm Lose with fake threat

I’ve written about this tactic before – using ‘rogue/fake’ threat or infection warnings to distribute REAL malware. This is one very effective way to get unsuspecting or untrained people to accidentally actually ‘infect’ themselves.

It now appears that a legitimate (using that word lightly now) company – CheckPoint, makers of ZoneAlarm is using the same tactic to ‘up sell’ their products to unsuspecting consumers. I hope others do not follow.

Please take the time to read this very short article.

At one time I used and recommended their products and most were quite good. In fact ZoneAlarm was one of the first ‘software firewalls’ I every used consistantly – over a decade ago.
However………

With this move CheckPoint has assured itself that it will be uninstalled and/or blocked on ALL of the machines (hundreds) I manage or have any influence upon.
I am passing this information to EVERYONE in my sphere of influence and I hope they do the same. Maybe even demand a refund pro-rata on any products they have installed.

Real D*%k move CheckPoint. See you later.

Gmail Integrates with Google Voice for Free Calls from Your Inbox.

Gmail is integrating Google Voice, bringing free calls to the U.S. and Canada and cheap international calls to Gmail—and it’s available today.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan-and many more countries-for as little as $0.02 per minute.

As soon as it’s available in your account, you’ll see a Call phone link in the Chat sidebar of Gmail. Click it, search for a contact or dial their number, and voila—phone call. If you’ve already got a Google Voice number, calls you make from Gmail will show your Voice number in that person’s caller ID. You can also receive calls (if you choose) made to your Voice number directly in Gmail—making it a fully legitimate VoIP solution.

Google’s rolling out the feature over the next couple of days in the U.S., so keep your eyes open. You’ll need to have installed the Voice and Video plug-in to use it. It’s not available on Google Apps accounts (yet), but Google says they’re working on it.

Here is the rate chart for international calls.

With the great quality of voice and video chat already built into Gmail/GChat I think this is a killer solution.

Some simple privacy and security tips

Besides my many previous tips on keeping your Browsers(and plug-ins like Flash), Operating Systems, Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware, and other productivity applications here are some other things you can do to help keep yourself even more secure and less likely to be ‘compromised’. Please read my previous articles on security and follow those tips first. The things here are some ways to ‘clear/delete’ temporary files that may contain sensitive information or possible a trojan/virus that is just ‘waiting’ to launch from a temporary location.

First

Every time I close my internet browser(s) (IE, Firefox, Opera etc.) I run CCleaner. Actually I run a ‘batch file’ that runs CCleaner and clears my network cache settings too. You can, and I recommend you do, simply run CCleaner every time you shut your browser. If you would like to use/create my batch file simply copy the information between the ‘start’ and ‘end’ into a text file and rename it with a .bat extension. Example copy the file into notepad and save the file with a name of clean.txt. Then rename the file clean.bat.

For XP

Start:

"C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO
arp -d
nbtstat -R
ipconfig /flushdns
nbtstat -RR
ipconfig /registerdns

Finish

for Window 7

Start:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO

arp -d
nbtstat -R
ipconfig /flushdns
nbtstat -RR
ipconfig /registerdns

Finish

Second

Some third-party programs can temporarily store unencrypted (plain-text) passwords or other sensitive information in memory. Because of the Windows virtual memory architecture, this information can be present in the paging file.

Although clearing the paging file is not a suitable substitute for physical security of a computer, you might want to do this to increase the security of data on a computer while Windows is not running.

   1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
   2. Change the data value of the ClearPageFileAtShutdown value in the following registry key to a value of 1:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
      If the value does not exist, add the following value:
      Value Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown
      Value Type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 1

This change does not take effect until you restart the computer.

Hope this helps some of you.

Getting started Blogging with MS Live Writer

I won’t go into a long winded explanation of ‘why’ you should have a blog, or many blogs, if you are a person with many fields of interest and or a business owner, so I will provide a few links to some good reasons but you can find many more yourself.

I blog for a few reasons; get my ideas on paper(albeit digital paper), share news and ideas with others and probably the primary reason is that it allows me to put information into a place that then allows ME to easily find that information I know I have ‘somewhere’ into an easily ‘searchable’ format. I often go back to my own blogs to find technical information on how to do things I know I have done in the past but can’t remember exactly how to now. By putting this information online I can easily find that information. A recent example was trying to help someone share an external Mac Volume. I couldn’t remember the terminal syntax. But I know I’ve done it many times before in the past. So I just searched my blog for ‘external Mac volumes’ and found what I was looking for! For business owners, special interest groups and artists blogs can be an invaluable method for connecting with the public!

Here is a good article on 10 reasons a small business should have a blog:

Here is another guys blog with 33 good reasons:

Of course you can do this: http://tinyurl.com/2vs5trg and find many more.

There are some other ‘rules’ or tips you can find via the search engines too. Two which I will mention are; adding content on a regular basis and having others provide links to your content on their sites. These two things will, more than anything short of paid advertising, get your blog ‘noticed’. If your desire is to actually make money (monetize your blog) you can also find that via the search engines too. Though that subject is way too convoluted and complex for me to handle here, there are hundreds of thousands of sites to explain that. Just Google ‘how to monetize your blog’. Even then 99.999% of blogs will never generate real revenue anyways. [If you are nice you’ll click on my adds here in the hope I might though 🙂 ha ha]

So let’s get started. Virtually all blogging services offer a simple ‘new post’ option to add new entries. It’s as simple as logging into your Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress or other account, going to the ‘dashboard’ and choosing ‘new post’. Simple and easy but not that customizable or feature packed. For many people this is usually more than enough to get started. But once you decide you really want to continue your writing you should look at some other ‘publishing’ tools.

My favorite tool for creating posts/blog entries – Windows Live Writer. Live Writer makes it easy to share your photos and videos on almost any blog service—Windows Live, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and many more. Live Writer lets me truly create the post I am looking for. It also allows me to create ‘drafts’ that I can work on as time permits and review them before publishing.
You can get Live Writer here:

The following videos directly from the Live Writer Team are excellent and way better than anything I could have done by just doing screen captures and writing explanations. They are short and very instructional and well worth bookmarking and watching several times.

Note that if you use Google’s Blogger blog service or WordPress (or even host your own) blog you do NOT have to set up a Windows Live blog.
Make sure to click on ‘ I already have a weblog set up’ and go from there.

Basic Authoring:

Live Writer is VERY much like MS Word in it’s formatting options. This makes it very easy to get the look and feel you are shooting for much easier than trying to do this via the ‘dashboard’ of your blog account.

Inserting Rich Content:
How to insert images, video and other content into your post.

And the last video in the series – Saving drafts, printing, modifying existing posts and categorizing posts:

If you really want your blog to be ‘found’ by people searching and actually read you should make a concerted effort to create appropriate ‘categories’ or ‘tags’ for you posts.
Just like you organize your hard copy files in a file cabinet, you can organize blog posts into categories or with tags, so they’re easy to find by people using search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) and by people searching your blog site in the future. Tags are often listed on blogs ‘sidebar’.
In order for your blog’s categories to be helpful to your readers, they need to be fairly intuitive, meaning it’s obvious what kinds of posts are included in each category. As you create your categories, think like your readers would. It’s also important to strike a balance between creating categories that are too broad and therefore don’t help readers narrow their searches and those that are too specific and offer so many choices that readers are confused.

I could go on and on but I just wanted to get this out there for those that were looking for some good directions to start.

For now LiveWriter is still only a Windows application – Sorry Mac enthusiasts. But you can run it from a Virtual Machine ‘inside’ OS X. Or use the Firefox plug-in ‘ScibeFire Blog Editor’ for LiveWriter ‘like’ functionality. But I’ll save that for another post.

More iPhone/iPad Jailbreak info

There is now a web based solution to easily Jailbreak you iP.. device for you.
JailbreakMe
Jailbreaking allows you to get tweaks and apps Apple won’t allow in the App Store.
Free, legal and safe.
You should sync with iTunes before using this tool.

Using this service to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad, or other iOS-driven devices is as simple as visiting the link below and swiping the slide-lock style interface at the bottom of the page.
http://www.jailbreakme.com/
For more info:
http://www.jailbreakme.com/faq.html

Also see my previous post here.

iPhone/iTouch Jail Breaking

I’ve been asked a whole lot recently since the courts ruled that jailbreaking is now legal about how to do this. So here are the links I HIGHLY recommend:
Hope this helps.
Latest exciting news:

Jailbreaking you iPhone/iPad just got even easier!

The Jailbreak Matrix is a massive chart of all the iOS devices and lists the various versions as well as the different firmware, baseband, and boot loaders that run on each. You check what you’ve got against the chart and it will tell you if the device/firmware combination is jailbreakable, what tools you need, what version of iTunes the said jailbreak technique has been tested with, and a step-by-step guide on how to apply the jailbreak.

As always check out these folks too!:
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/jailbreak/

[great information is here:
Great new article from Gizmodo on jailbreaking iPhones and iPads]
————————————-
This is the site to start at!!:

http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/01/jailbreak-firmware-2-2-1.html

Forums which will tell you how to use the downloads below:
http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/01/jailbreak-firmware-2-2-1.html

QuickPWN
Software Version: 2.2.5-2
Creator: iPhone Dev Team and poorlad
Description: QuickPWN allows you to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone and jailbreak your iPod Touch so you can modify it, SSH into it, choose your own theme and many other cool things.
Downloads:
For Windows:
http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/01/jailbreak-firmware-2-2-1.html
Mac:
http://quickpwn2-2-1.googlecode.com/files/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg

iPhone Firmware
iPhone firmware 2.2

iPhone 2.2.1 firmware

iPhone 3G Firmware
iPhone 3G 2.2 firmware

iPhone 3G 2.2.1 firmware

iPod Touch Firmware

iPod Touch 1G 2.2.1 firmware

iPod Touch 2G 2.2.1 firmware

Software Downloads

WinSCP – WinSCP allows you to SSH into your iPhone/iPod Touch and add/remove/edit files and execute commands.

AND:

See Here:
http://www.ipodtouchhacks.com/ipod/touch/jailbreak/